


We Were Heading For The Sea

by softlyforgotten



Category: Bandom, Panic At The Disco, The Young Veins
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2011-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 22:42:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlyforgotten/pseuds/softlyforgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And across the kitchen table/I fired several rounds/but you were still sitting there when the smoke cleared." -- Ani DiFranco</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Were Heading For The Sea

> Most stirring & strange is the affection in it – the romantic chorus, the idyllic melody, - because there's such a disconnect between this and the lyrics. "What's broken can always be fixed / what's fixed will always be broken"? That last part's not a banality. Or when he wakes in the hospital bed: "You're sitting next to me reading the paper / I put your arm around me." It's a broken relationship, one half more in love than the other.
> 
> And you could explain all this by calling the narrator deluded, blind to the nature of his own love affair. Or you could see the song as something else: a recollection. A snapshot & a story. The desire to go back to another time, to swim for a while there, and to cast it in rosy light. The doomed, daft act of revisiting a lost place and gilding it gold.
> 
> \-- Sean Michaels

 

Brendon could see him from the beach. The house wasn't quite close enough that Brendon would be able to see anyone sitting on his back steps from the actual water but halfway up the sand he froze, surfboard tucked under his arm, eyes trained on the unmistakeable figure lounging on Brendon's steps.

For a moment he let himself not register things properly, thought instead about how awesome it would be if he _could_ see Ryan on his back steps from the water, the sea surging up beneath him, the roll of the waves, standing on his board with his gaze fixed straight ahead as the world rushed to meet him. Then he groaned and rolled his head from side to side, cracking his neck. He wished, stupidly and uselessly, that he wasn't wearing a wetsuit and dripping everywhere, that he had a little more advantage in the situation, or at least an even footing. Brendon had been waiting. He'd known that this would happen, ever since Spencer called him last Monday and said, "So, we went to lunch," but he'd thought that Ryan would postpone the inevitable confrontation a while yet.

Apparently not, though when he got to the house Ryan didn't look very angry at all. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and smiled, said, "Nice waves. It looks good out there."

"Uh, yeah," Brendon said, dumping his board and running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, it's pretty – it's alright." He stopped, but Ryan didn't say anything else, just nodded and smiled at him. Brendon shook his head, scattering water everywhere, and asked, "You want to come in?"

"Sure," Ryan said, shrugging, and Brendon shot him an incredulous look and then went up the steps, brushing past Ryan to open the door. Ryan followed him in as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

"I'm going to get changed, one sec," Brendon said, and darted down the hall to peel his wetsuit off, settled into jeans and a t-shirt instead. For one wild moment he considered calling Spencer and asking for help, or a rescue mission. He'd been in a good mood, having a good day, and dealing with Ryan didn't feature into that plan.

In the kitchen, Ryan was drinking a glass of soda and helping himself to Brendon's fridge, laying out ingredients for a sandwich. "You want one?" he asked when Brendon stared at him in disbelief, and didn't wait for an answer, just put out another two pieces of bread. Brendon watched him slice up a tomato with quick, easy movements, and wondered for a moment if he'd wandered into a different dimension by accident.

"Ryan," he said. "What are you doing?"

"Having lunch," Ryan told him. He cast Brendon a rueful glance. "I forgot to go grocery shopping again, there's seriously not anything in my fridge. And the only places I can find open are supermarkets – I still have no idea where the fuck anything is around here – and I had a craving for, like, good vegetables, so I came here. You should really give me a key," he added. "It gets boring watching you surf after a while."

Brendon swallowed. "I meant," he said, "what are you doing _here_?"

"You always have good food," Ryan said.

Brendon said, "Ryan."

"What?" Ryan was frowning now at least, which felt slightly more normal in terms of the whole damn thing. "Are you mad at me?"

Brendon gaped at him. "Are you fucking kidding me? Did you miss the part where you left the band?"

"But you wanted me to," Ryan said, suddenly anxious. "I mean. We wanted to make different music. Both of us. We were – it was the right thing to do, wasn't it?"

"I – yeah," Brendon said. "Yeah, but." He drew in a breath. "We haven't – we've barely spoken for three months, and before that we were busy yelling at each other, and—"

"I don't know," Ryan said. "It was weird. But it's better now, we worked out what we had to do, and it's, it's stupid to stop hanging out, or whatever. Don't you think?"

"Ryan," Brendon repeated, voice a little harder now. He could feel anger rising at the back of his throat, bitter like bile, because Ryan was doing the what had always infuriated Brendon more than anything, was being condescending and ridiculous, and skating over things that _mattered_. He hadn't expected Ryan to react like that, not for something this big. On the plus side for his intuition, he _had_ expected Ryan to be a douche. "You know it isn't that easy. We're – you live in, like, a totally different world to me, now, and you wanna just waltz in and pretend everything's normal? You _know_ it can never be that easy—"

"Hey," Ryan said, and he looked vulnerable, just a flash of it across his face. It made him look incredibly young, like he was seventeen again, asking Brendon to sing. It was hard to be angry at Ryan when he was looking at Brendon like that. Ryan touched Brendon's arm, very lightly and very quickly, but Brendon felt it linger. "Brendon," Ryan said. "I just want a sandwich. I just want to hang out."

"I – right," Brendon said uneasily. He felt shaky and unsure on his own feet, like something had knocked him completely off-balance but more importantly he didn't remember how to stand upright anymore. Ryan had gone back to smiling at him, quiet and settled and utterly at home in Brendon's kitchen. Brendon said, "Right – fine, okay."

"Good," Ryan said. "Do you have any pickles?"

\---

They ate their sandwiches without plates in Brendon's living room, sprawled on the sofa. At first Brendon had sat stiffly upright on one end, but then Ryan had stretched out and dumped his feet in Brendon's lap, and Brendon had wriggled around and made himself comfortable, fitting his legs between Ryan's back and the couch. Ryan flipped around the channels aimlessly and Brendon still felt weird, tension prickling under his skin, but this was still a lot better than the fight he'd imagined them having. Also Ryan hadn't noticed the mayo dripping out the bottom of his sandwich and onto his shirt, which was always a good time.

"Will you just pick a fucking show and stick with it?" Brendon demanded as Ryan began the third loop round of all Brendon's TV channels (and Brendon had _cable_ ). Ryan shot him a faintly wounded look.

"It's an important task," he said. "I don't want to veg out in front of any old thing."

"You're a freak," Brendon said, and the way Ryan's eyes darted quickly, guilty to him meant that he knew Brendon wasn't just talking about the TV. Brendon sighed and poked his toes absently at Ryan's ribs, humming the jingle from a commercial even as Ryan skipped past the channel. Ryan closed one hand around Brendon's foot, stroked idly over the bone. Brendon stared at him.

"Aha," Ryan said, striking gold on a Family Guy episode, and Brendon hummed his approval around the last mouthful of his sandwich. Ryan didn't move his hand, thumb stroking across Brendon's skin in slow, soothing movements, and Brendon felt something loosen in him, uncoil and release. _I am so pissed at you_ , he thought, but he'd stopped the mantra of reasons why in his head, a constantly revolving list ready for the moment Brendon got to throw it all in Ryan's face. Despite the weirdness, it was good to sit there and feel vaguely normal about the world again for a while. The sandwich was good, too. Brendon closed his eyes and listened to the squeaking of overexcited voices from the screen and the soft huff of Ryan's laughter.

When he woke, the sun was much lower in the sky, heading slowly and steadily into the sea, and Ryan was crouching in front of Brendon's DVD cupboard, rifling through the pile. Brendon guessed it was around five-thirty.

"Hey," he mumbled, sitting up and stretching his aching back. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for something to watch," Ryan said. "Did you know you have two copies of West Side Story?"

"Shut up, it's awesome," Brendon said. He groaned, twisting his body into shape, and Ryan looked at him, clearly amused.

"Do you always crash after you've been surfing?" Ryan asked. "That's not so much with the cool image you've got going."

"I was up at seven this morning," Brendon said. "There was some animal going through my trash, I couldn't get back to sleep."

Ryan's eyes widened. "Did you go out and chase it?"

"Seriously?" Brendon laughed, short and surprised. "I'm too much of a coward for that. I was lying there thinking, _holy shit, it's a bear_ and like, trying to work out what to do if it got in the house. I'm thinking I'd go up on the roof? But then, I'm pretty sure bears can climb, so maybe that's not such a good idea."

"Yeah," Ryan said, and frowned. "Is it bears who are scared of water?"

"No, they go fishing and shit," Brendon said. "Even if they were, though, I don't think jumping in the bath is going to stop one if it wants to eat me. Anyway, then I got up and Googled for a while and bears don't come near here, so that was cool. But I still couldn't sleep. And now I won't be able to sleep tonight, fucker, why'd you let me nap?"

"I'll keep you company," Ryan said. "Let's order pizza." He stretched, closing his eyes for a moment, and his shirt rode up. Brendon looked absently at the strip of skin, at the curves of his hipbones.

Ryan left around midnight. Brendon didn't walk him to the door or offer to let him stay the night, and they didn't hug, but Ryan ran his hand through Brendon's hair as he passed the couch, tugging lightly on a lock in some sort of goodbye. That night, Brendon managed to sleep for nearly ten hours, and woke to the insistent buzzing of his phone and Spencer wondering where he was.

Brendon picked up donuts and coffee on his way to the studio in apology, and Spencer laughed at his guilty face and shoved him into a recording booth. They were racing to finish the demo for _Oh Glory_ , because Spencer wanted to put it out as some sort of hope for the fans, and because they were talking about getting the album out around Christmas. Secretly, Brendon thought there wasn't much of a chance of that at all, and that Spencer knew that, but they both had a sudden, reckless urgency in them, a sense that they had the go ahead now, that with the final affirmation they could push on as much as they wanted to, and both of them wanted to _move_. Brendon felt like he'd been waiting for this for a long time.

The most unsettling thing about it was how very normal it felt. Brendon leaned into the microphone and closed his eyes, and for a while it was frustrating, and nothing came out right, and that was normal, too, but didn't make it any less frustrating. He broke after about an hour, turned away and slammed his hand uselessly against the glass, not hard enough to do anything but sting his palm, and came out glaring.

Spencer looked at him, biting his lip. "What's going wrong?" he asked.

"I can't fucking get it," Brendon snapped. "It doesn't – sound right, I don't know how it's meant to sound—"

"Work it out," Spencer said, sounding a little bit exasperated himself. "Jesus, Brendon. It's your song."

"But how should it sound?" Brendon demanded. "I mean, I can do it – with, like, a swagger, or kind of, I dunno, more earnest, I can't think of how it should be—"

"Brendon," Spencer said. "Sing it how you want. You wrote it."

Brendon glared and bounced up on the heels of his feet and said, "You know, that really doesn't help me." Spencer shrugged and Brendon huffed out a breath, and then said, "Fine, I wanna do it a bunch of different ways."

Spencer's mouth twitched. "Fine," he agreed, and Brendon went back into the recording booth and came up with four or five characters in his head, most of them pinched from various movies – though no one ever had to know that – and sang it straight through six times in a row.

They were good. It was fun, to have variety, to stretch his voice around the words in a different ways, come up with ways to make _lately it seems like everybody's sick, everybody's dying_ desperate or amused or knowing or cruel, and then he stuck his head out of the booth again and he and Spencer said at the same time, "Fifth one?" Brendon beamed.

When they were pretty much done for the day, and John had gone home, Spencer looked up from his laptop and asked hesitantly, "You want to do something real quick? Just – show we're not dead, or—"

"Yeah," Brendon said. He picked up his acoustic and played a few bars, and Spencer nodded, grinning. They didn't bother setting up all the equipment, just hooked up a couple of mikes, and Brendon sang with Spencer smiling at him. It was weird; he'd spent the last couple of months listening to this song on repeat, trying to believe it and mostly just feeling wretched and hopeless with all the anger building up in him. Now, he thought about today and singing things the way he wanted, about the first swell of breath when Spencer had gotten behind his kit and they'd started rearranging _Camisado_ , and it had been weird, it had been, but he had turned around and played at Spencer and it was his fight, too, or he could turn it into that. His fingers were sore in his favourite way, and it wasn't very hard at all to sing _every little thing is gonna be alright_.

They sent it to Pete and Spencer looked at Brendon, who felt like maybe he was vibrating a little, and laughed, said, "You want to go somewhere?"

"I'm _starving_ ," Brendon said, and they went to some tapas bar and ordered the silliest sounding drinks on the menu (Brendon's had 'gay' in the description, but Spencer's came out frothy and pink, so he won that particular night).

"Right," Brendon said, and pulled a bunch of napkins out of the holder and stole Spencer's ballpoint from his jacket pocket. He wrote up lists of all the songs they had and said, "How are we going to order them? I'm thinking, like, through theme, maybe—"

"Brendon," Spencer said, sounding like he was trying very hard not to laugh. "Brendon, we haven't even written half of the songs."

"I'm just being organised," Brendon informed him. "Alright, but look, we could also do it by _key_ , and then that might be – like, that's a theme all on its own, because the D minor ones, here, they're a bit more—"

"Brendon," Spencer said.

"Oh man, _or_ ," Brendon said, getting excited. " _Or_ we could do it by the end, right, could we figure out a way with the last and the first chords, or even, like, fucking _Hazards of Love_ , man, get the songs flowing into each other so you're like, wait, what, is that a new song? I mean, it'd mean a bit of playing around with what we've got, but I think if we just – you know?"

"Hmmn," Spencer said, looking drawn in all of a sudden. "Like – a little bit, with the last album, the end of _Holy Spaces_ and then _Northern Downpour_?"

"Yeah," Brendon said. "Only _more_."

"Okay," Spencer said, leaning forward, gaze intent. "So, alright, carry the end of songs through – can we take _Oh Glory_ into that one you were playing around with today, then? The uh," and he hummed a few bars, and Brendon nodded quickly.

"Yeah!" he said. "Yeah, just like that, and alright, if we decide to keep _New Perspective_ for the record, and keep it in the single position, then what if we added thirty seconds or something to the end of it, so we could transition it into the next. Um, you know that one that John said we needed to redo? Maybe, if we could fit it onto the _end_ of something—"

"—the rest of it might come easier," Spencer agreed, nodding. "Right, okay."

They continued on through the main courses, Brendon steadily getting more excited by the way things were working out, until finally Spencer cried, "No more!" and slammed his hands down dramatically on the table. "We've been playing _all day_ , okay, if I hear you ramble about fucking minor versus major one more time I'm going to be forced to kill you—" Brendon gasped at him in outrage and Spencer burst out laughing, face bright and all lit up.

"Fine then," Brendon said. "I'm just trying to be professional, but whatever, clearly I am a – a lone wolf." He waited while Spencer laughed some more, and then asked, a little plaintively, "Are we going to the barbecue at Shane's this weekend?"

"Because we're attached at the hip," Spencer said, rolling his eyes, and then paused and grimaced. "Wait, okay, don't answer that. Do you think it would be too lame or just kind of awesome to shake up cans of soda before people open it?"

"Oooh," Brendon said, grinning. Then he sighed and said, "But like anyone's going to be drinking soda, anyway."

"Fair point," Spencer agreed, and took another swig of his beer, the discarded cocktail glass sitting forlornly in a corner.

Brendon watched him drink and then said, without really thinking, "I saw Ryan yesterday."

Spencer set his bottle down, eyed Brendon carefully. "Oh?"

"Yeah." Brendon laughed awkwardly and palmed the back of his neck. "It was pretty weird."

"Guess it would be," Spencer said. "Your voice is good, though, so presumably you didn't scream at each other for too long."

"We didn't scream at all," Brendon said. "I. It was weird. He acted like everything was normal, like there was nothing to even talk about. Like it was the definition of an amicable split, rather than—"

"The Diva Tempers Death Match," Spencer finished dryly.

Brendon thumped him lightly on the arm. "Shut up," he said, but he was glad, that Spencer had stepped in and said it like that, because it made him feel tired again if he thought about the real thing for too long, the fighting and then the endless, cold silence. He was glad Spencer had stepped in. "I don't know. It was – not at all what I expected." He shook his head and asked, "Have you spoken to him?"

"Not since last week," Spencer said. "I talked to Jon yesterday for a while. They're recording, too. I kind of thought – I would think that Ryan would take this hard, like, a pretty big thing, no matter that he was the one who initiated it. This is—"

"—weird," Brendon said, for the umpteenth time. He laughed again, for no real reason. "Still, it was better than having a patented Ryan Ross tantrum on my hands."

"Getting torn to death by wild dogs is, I imagine, a fair bit better than that," Spencer said, grinning. "Well, that's good then. Or could have been worse, at least."

"That's what I thought," Brendon said. "Anyway. Did you talk to Pete about getting Ian in?"

"Yeah," Spencer said, and they moved on, but Brendon called it a night soon after that and headed home still feeling unsettled. His throat was a little sore, and smoking with the drinks probably hadn't been such a good idea, so he fixed himself some honey and lemon tea when he got home and drank it in front of his laptop, scrolling through a bunch of unanswered emails and grimacing. Pete had forwarded on a whole bunch of interview requests, and Brendon made a face and then forwarded them on yet again to Spencer, with a hopeful smiley face in the body of the email. He checked a few blogs, too, but only skimmed past Twitter. He'd been ignoring those updates on his phone, too.

At three he finally went to bed, still awake enough to jerk off lazily before he went to sleep. He didn't think about anything or anyone in particular, just vague ideas about skin and hazy images. His dreams, if he dreamed at all, were unspectacular.

\---

On Wednesday he pulled into his driveway at ten o'clock after another day of recording, got out of the car, and then blinked, taking an unsteady step backwards. For a moment, the disconnect of being in the studio all day and then coming home to Ryan waiting on his front steps seemed inconceivably, unalterably huge, and almost too much for Brendon to understand. He closed the car door slowly and walked forward, and everything seemed new and shockingly different and fragile, and Brendon wasn't sure he liked it at all.

"Finally," Ryan said, apparently unconcerned. "I've been waiting for ages. I mean it, you really should give me a key."

"Hi," Brendon said warily, and unlocked the door. Ryan pushed ahead of him, calling something about needing to piss over his shoulder, and Brendon ran his tongue along his teeth and went into the kitchen, turned the kettle on. He pulled some leftover pasta out of the fridge, too, and stuck it in the microwave. Ryan gave it an appreciative glance when he came back in.

"I'm starving," he said, getting it out of the microwave and spooning it haphazardly into two bowls. "Where have you been?"

"Recording," Brendon said. "We got two new tracks laid down."

"Cool," Ryan said. "You want to play some video games? I had a craving for, uh, old-school Mario Kart or whatever, but I don't even have a Wii."

Brendon shot him an incredulous glance. "You don't even like video games," he said. He wondered if maybe Ryan was being ironic. It seemed like something he'd be into.

"Yeah," Ryan said meaninglessly, and led the way into the living room, where he began shovelling pasta in his mouth at such a rate that he managed to spatter Brendon's couch with tomato sauce. He only laughed when Brendon scowled at him, and crooked his fingers imperiously for a controller.

They sat on the floor, backs against the couch, and after Ryan had finished his meal he crowded in close to Brendon, sat with his knee overlapping Brendon's, their jean-clad thighs pressed close together. Ryan was as bad at video games as ever, and he still drove with his whole body, veering to one side with his car, and practically collapsing across Brendon's lap when he took a sharp right. Brendon beat him easily, humming something jaunty and cheerful under his breath that clashed with the theme music and made Ryan glare at him. After a couple of hours, though, Ryan got better and Brendon got sleepier, half drowsing on Ryan's shoulder, and then they were a little more evenly matched.

At one point he blinked and realised that Ryan was playing solo, while Brendon was breathing steadily into Ryan's neck, his controller lax in his hands. He stirred, and Ryan stopped the game and turned to smile slightly at him, face blurry that close. Brendon blinked at him and Ryan laughed, said, "You should go to bed."

"M'awake," Brendon protested. It was kind of nice, propped up against Ryan's body like this. He couldn't remember the last time they'd been so close, though at least he'd spent most of his time since being too busy raging at Ryan to miss him. Ryan was warm and comfortable, though his fingers felt a little prickly where they touched Brendon's skin. Brendon was half-asleep, though, and it was hard to wonder about anything.

"You're a liar," Ryan said, and eased Brendon upright, slinging one of Brendon's arms around his shoulders and steering him down the hall into Brendon's room. He pulled back the covers and Brendon went to collapse onto the bed, but Ryan laughed again and said, "Uh-uh, pants first." He unbuttoned Brendon's jeans and pulled them down until Brendon could step out of them, which was, okay, maybe a little strange, but nothing they hadn't done for each other before. Only then did he let Brendon crawl into bed and pull the covers up and around himself.

"I'll let myself out," Ryan said. "Good night." Brendon mumbled some vaguely incoherent goodbye, and the last thing he heard was the door clicking closed, before everything was dark and peaceful.

The next morning he went out quickly before he headed off to the studio and got a copy made of his house key, hiding it in a shadowy little nook above the doorframe and texting Ryan with the location. Ryan didn't respond, and Brendon regretted it later, when he went to the studio and was met by Spencer rolling his eyes and saying, "Did you see them yet?" but by then it was too late, and Brendon opened his (unlocked, Jesus) door that night to Ryan singing along with the radio, fairly tunelessly, in the kitchen.

He grinned when Brendon came in. "Hey!" he said. "I ordered pizza. Are you vegetarian again? I got one half with no meat, just in case."

"I'm not," Brendon said, picking up a ham and pineapple slice and biting into that. Ryan shrugged, mouth twitching in the corner.

"You never know," he said. "There's always a chance, with you. Have you not seen Bambi in a while?"

Brendon bared his teeth, not entirely meaning it as a joke, and went to the fridge, helped himself to a beer. He didn't offer Ryan one. He wasn't particularly in the mood for Ryan's sense of humour.

"I saw the photos, dude," he said, settling down in a chair and resting his feet on the table. "Real classy."

Ryan laughed. "Bad timing, huh?" he said. "It's cool, though. I did an interview today and they asked, I said I didn't take any or know it was there or whatever."

"Seriously?" Brendon stared. "You're going to come across as either a moron or a dope fiend, there's no good there."

Ryan shrugged. "It doesn't matter," he said. "I'm not a cokehead or whatever, so." He smiled at Brendon and Brendon looked back at him blankly, thought, _that's not me, it's my evil twin!_ Ryan said, "Don't worry about it, seriously. It's not a big deal," and stole a sip from Brendon's beer.

Brendon snatched it back, scowling. "So what was the interview like?" he asked.

"Oh, you know," Ryan said. "What you'd expect. Journalists, man." He rolled his eyes. "You want to go see a movie?"

"I'm tired," Brendon said automatically.

"Come on," Ryan said. "It's not so late. I want popcorn." He widened his eyes in what he probably thought was an enticing manner, but mostly just made him look a little rabid. "I'll pay."

"No," Brendon said. "I'm tired, Ryan."

Ryan opened his mouth, frowning, but Brendon set his jaw and stared, and after a moment Ryan turned away. "Fine," he said. He tried to pick up the conversation, turn the evening into something light, but Brendon thought about Ryan young and tight-lipped, staying in Brendon's apartment when his own house was too bad. Brendon tilted his head back easily and hummed, quick and vicious, the first few lines of _Camisado_. Ryan didn't say anything, but left pretty soon after that.

\---

The interview, when it came out, kind of pissed him off. Not a huge deal; not as much as it did Spencer, and really, Panic split or not, Brendon didn't think he'd ever get over the uneasy feeling that came with seeing Spencer being angry at Ryan. It was the end of an unsatisfying day, Brendon itchy and unable to settle, Spencer's hands hurting from new calluses, and Spencer was flicking through emails on the sofa before they went home.

He read it quickly, skimming through it, and then shoved the laptop aside and went out of the room, slamming the door hard behind him. Brendon waited to follow him, could see through the window Spencer pacing up and down a corridor and then calling someone, probably Crystal or Jackie. He settled down with the laptop instead, and mostly surprised himself by just rolling his eyes and thinking again about what a douche Ryan was. He went out afterward and sat down next to Spencer, quiet in case Spencer needed to rant, but left feeling okay.

He was still annoyed enough that when he got home the last thing he felt like seeing was Ryan napping on his couch. The universe apparently wasn't looking out for him, because that's what he found, anyway, and Ryan didn't wake up even when Brendon stomped around the room loudly and put music on. In the end he gave up and went off to try and figure out a keyboard arrangement for the song he'd been stumped on all day.

He came up eventually with an arrangement that would do for now, and went off to reheat some leftovers from the other night for dinner. It was then, of course, that Ryan came in looking sleepy and curious, and he said he wasn't hungry but ended up eating half of Brendon's meal anyway, apparently impervious to the glare Brendon directed at him.

"You're kind of an asshole, you know," Brendon said, when Ryan passed the mostly empty bowl back to him.

Ryan blinked at him. "What did I do?" he asked, eyes wide and surprised. He looked young, his face soft like it was when he hadn't quite woken up yet, cheekbones sharp and outlined in shadows, and Brendon found himself just looking at Ryan, as opposed to glaring. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes tiredly.

"I don't know, Ryan," he drawled, knowing he sounded like an asshole himself and kind of enjoying it. "What do you think you did?"

"I don't know," Ryan said. "You've been so bitchy lately, it's really annoying. Are you tired or something?"

Brendon gaped. "Are you fucking serious?" he spat, and then decided he didn't want to hear the answer, got up and walked out of the room. He went into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him, sprawling on the bed. It was pretty childish, slamming doors, but he didn't care, because fuck _yes_ , he was tired, recording an album and preparing a tour at breakneck pace could kind of do that to you, and he'd sort of hoped one upside of the whole thing might be not having to put up with Ryan Ross's goddamn inscrutability, and now Ryan was going to the lengths of invading Brendon's home in order to be a weird jerk who never took anything seriously.

The door opened, letting in the hallway light for the moment it took Ryan to slip inside and close it, and Brendon resolutely rolled over on his side, didn't want to talk or look, just wanted Ryan to go away.

"Brendon," Ryan said, sing-song.

"Fuck off," Brendon said, and Ryan laughed softly. Brendon hated him for a moment, hated the stupid arrogance he carried himself with, hated his stupid refusal to admit anything important. He turned his face half into the pillow and felt the bed dip as Ryan climbed up onto it, lay next to Brendon and draped an arm over his chest. Brendon closed his eyes.

"Don't be mad," Ryan said. "Come on, Brendon, don't be a jerk."

Brendon rolled onto his back with an affronted sound. " _You're_ the jerk, jerk," he said, and Ryan smiled crookedly down at him, propped up on his elbow. Brendon sighed and said, "Why are you hanging out here all the time, anyway? Aren't you recording too?"

"Yeah," Ryan said, meaninglessly. "You know."

"I don't," Brendon said.

"Whatever, it's just the normal stuff," Ryan said, and, as Brendon opened his mouth, reached down with one hand to slide his fingers along the side of Brendon's face, the curve of his cheek. Brendon snapped his mouth shut and stared, and Ryan tugged at a lock of Brendon's hair and grinned. Then he leaned down and kissed Brendon, soft and warm, nipping gently at Brendon's bottom lip until he opened his mouth on a shocked breath and let Ryan slide his tongue in, let Ryan hold Brendon's face in his hands and kiss Brendon slow and lazy, like he couldn't think of anything better to do.

Brendon pulled back sharply and stared at Ryan, felt his cheeks turn red. "What the fuck?" he said. "What are you doing?"

Ryan stretched, pushing his hips down and arching his back up, and said, "It's just kissing, dude. Don't freak out." Brendon made an incredulous face and Ryan rolled on top of him, legs on either side of Brendon's hips, tightening slightly around him, and letting himself down on top of Brendon, nuzzling at Brendon's chin. "Hey, Brendon," he mumbled. "It's just me." He bit, lightly, on Brendon's pulse point and something flared red and black in front of Brendon's eyes, made him gasp and drag Ryan in closer, clenching his hands in Ryan's shirt and lifting his mouth to meet Ryan's, biting and licking at his mouth, smothering Ryan's huff of delighted laughter.

 _You freak_ , Brendon thought, but it made him smile and Ryan felt it, murmured, "What?" against his mouth. Brendon shook his head and Ryan sank down closer, pinning Brendon to the bed, curling his fingers in Brendon's hair just tight enough for it to hurt a little, and Brendon groaned and pushed up, not trying to get away, just wanting the friction. He bit Ryan's lip, hard, demanding, and Ryan reached down and pinched Brendon's hip where his t-shirt had ridden up, hissed something that Brendon didn't catch.

"Hey," Brendon mumbled, and Ryan pulled away a little, their faces still very close, Ryan's eyes huge in the dark. Brendon wasn't sure what he wanted to say, really, and after a moment Ryan kissed Brendon again, slow and insistent, and Brendon closed his eyes and sank back onto the mattress, slipped a hand up the back of Ryan's shirt and let it rest on the narrow strip of warm skin before Ryan's trousers. He was half hard, and could feel that Ryan was too, but a little of the urgency had gone. Brendon felt suddenly nervous.

"That kind of came out of nowhere," he said, breaking away enough to speak. His heart was racing too fast in his chest; since when did Ryan kiss guys, he wondered vaguely. Since when did Ryan kiss _him_. Ryan gave him an exasperated glance and pulled back again, looking at Brendon like he was some sort of curiousity Ryan didn't quite understand.

"At least you're not mad anymore," Ryan pointed out, and Brendon bit back the urge to snarl. _Fuck you,_ he thought, and wondered if this was what Ryan did with his hipster friends these days, if this was the way Ryan solved everything. He sort of wanted to punch Ryan in the face. He also sort of wanted to kiss him again.

Instead, he said, "I'm kind of beat."

Ryan huffed. "If you didn't spend obnoxiously long hours out of the house every day," he said, and clambered off Brendon's lap. "You just had a weekend, how the fuck are you tired already?

Brendon looked at him, letting out a startled, incredulous huff of air. "We're recording, dude," he said. "We didn't stop this weekend. You know what it's like."

"Yeah, yeah," Ryan said. "Alright, so go to sleep, then." He unbuttoned his fly and arched his hips, pushing his trousers down until he could kick them off. Brendon stared, couldn't help it, Ryan's long legs and the line of his cock through his underwear, and Ryan caught him at it and grinned, quick and dirty. He rolled over and unbuttoned Brendon's jeans for him, dragging them down too slowly to be natural, making Brendon hiss when he grazed Brendon's cock with the back of his hand. Then he tossed Brendon's jeans aside.

"Just kissing," Brendon said, slowly. Ryan looked down at him for a moment, and it felt like they were hung in space, neither of them moving, neither of them giving an inch. Ryan was still leaning over Brendon, their bare legs brushing very, very slightly. Brendon stared up at him, felt his cheeks flushing and his head reeling, but on the surface everything was very, very still, and his breathing was almost even. Ryan cocked his head to the side and half-smiled, and then moved aside. _Truce_ , Brendon thought.

"Just sleeping, now," Ryan told him, and crawled under the covers. After a moment's hesitation, Brendon followed him, and kicked insistently when Ryan tried to press his cold feet against the backs of Brendon's legs.

"You stay on your side," Brendon warned, and Ryan bared his teeth in an almost vicious grin in the dark. Brendon rolled over onto his side, back to Ryan, and watched the red numbers of his digital clock shifting, until he forgot to watch and fell asleep.

He woke earlier than usual, taking a while to adjust to his surroundings. He was sweating more than usual, which was weird until he took in the fact that he was still half-clothed and that Ryan was plastered up against his back, face tucked against Brendon's neck, hand resting just above Brendon's dick with his pinkie finger tucked under the waistband of Brendon's underwear, boner pressed against Brendon's ass. It was too soon after waking up to be able to deal with anything reasonably or in a thoughtful manner; Brendon reached down to squeeze his own hard dick and rubbed back against Ryan, humming something sleep-warm and content. He had a song stuck in his head, but he couldn't remember any of the words. It was going to bug him for ages, now.

Ryan groaned, mouth open and wet against Brendon's skin, and then stirred a little more, shifting his hand down into Brendon's underwear and curling a hand around Brendon's cock, stroking him lazily. Brendon sighed and tried to push simultaneously back against Ryan's cock and up into Ryan's hand, and Ryan laughed softly at his failure, waking up impressively quickly behind him. Brendon blinked slowly and yawned, and then, decisively, rolled over, jostling Ryan's hand and taking Ryan's cock in his own hand.

Ryan gasped and then slid forward and kissed him in a rush, hot and a little sloppy, and they both had morning breath, so who gave a shit. Brendon forgot to keep jerking Ryan off, brain fuzzy, and after a moment Ryan pushed his hand away impatiently and climbed up on top of Brendon again, rocking their hips together and pulling Brendon up into a sitting position so they could kiss, wet and messy and awesome.

"Fuck," Brendon said, and Ryan shoved closer to him, grinding down and winding long arms around Brendon's neck. Brendon dug his fingers into Ryan's shoulder blades, breaking away from his mouth to suck a line down his neck, looking up to watch Ryan tilt his head back, baring his throat. He got distracted by Ryan's mouth again, and caught it hard and off balance so that their teeth knocked and Ryan laughed harsh and breathless, panting into Brendon's mouth.

Brendon slid his hands down Ryan's back and anchored them around his hips, pulling him closer and down, and Ryan dragged his hips in a rough, dirty circle. It wasn't really comfortable with their underwear still on, trapping his dick, but Brendon couldn't make himself take his hands off Ryan, and a second later he stiffened and came anyway, hips jerking up involuntarily. Ryan wasn't very far behind him; another moment and he collapsed on top of Brendon, breathing raggedly against the corner of his mouth.

"Um," Brendon said. He still couldn't remember that goddamn song. "Good morning."

Ryan blinked down at him and stretched, slow and languorous, shirt riding up and baring a strip of stomach and a line of dark hair that Brendon's gaze followed automatically, eyes dark. Ryan climbed off him and gave a disgruntled look at the clock radio before sliding back under the covers.

"Why the fuck did you wake me up?" he grumbled. He made a face and, after some enthusiastic wriggling under the blankets, pulled free his dirty underwear and chucked them over the side of the bed. Brendon tried not to think about how Ryan was mostly naked under there.

"I've got to go," he said instead. "We're still laying down demos."

Ryan glared at him. "It's the weekend."

"It's Tuesday," Brendon corrected, smiling. "You hang out, though. I'll see you later, maybe."

"Maybe," Ryan grunted, yanking the covers up over his shoulders and rolling away from Brendon. Brendon rolled his eyes and went off to shower, and even Ryan's bitchiness couldn't stop his good mood, not after – okay, a variation of – morning sex. Everything seemed very light, his chest buzzing and full of air.

He greeted Spencer and John with a grin and said, "I wanna do _New Perspective_ , first. Then we can rehearse, yeah?"

"Sure," Spencer said, shrugging. He laid down the drum parts first, to go with the guitar that Brendon had done on the weekend, and Brendon stood by him and kept time with his feet, his hands tapping on the bench, bobbing his head, until it felt like it had filled his whole body, this song, their song, a new kind of their. Brendon was still surprised by how little it hurt.

He felt impatient and almost ready to burst with it when it came to his turn. He clutched the lyrics page in his hand but barely looked at it, and everything was growing inside him, that perfect moment of clarity when he sang the first line, and he thought, _oh, fuck yes_. It felt like he sang it for hours, but it was only one take, and when he stopped and looked up, Spencer was laughing with his head thrown back, while John was grinning at him.

"Fuck yeah," he said, and pumped his fist into the air, first fucking take.

The weird joy and strength of the song filled the rest of the day, and they moved fast, racing through songs and covers, trying new things. Brendon wondered if there was something about being on shaky ground that he _loved_ that could explain all of this, the way the restlessness inside him felt like it was going somewhere, finally.

They actually finished recording at a reasonable hour, for once, but Ryan was still long gone by the time Brendon went home.

\---

Brendon didn't see much of Ryan for the rest of the week, and he thought uneasily about pushing boundaries, how they'd seriously messed up this time. On Friday evening, though, Ryan was sitting on Brendon's couch watching the first Indiana Jones movie as though it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be doing. When Brendon came in he offered the bowl of popcorn without looking up and Brendon took a handful as he toed off his shoes, and lay down on the other end of the couch, draping his legs over Ryan's.

"Hello," he said, "I just want to know, right, are you going to jump me, or am I safe?"

Ryan gave him a slightly annoyed look, and Brendon flushed, felt stupid and small and put in his place. Then he snuck a glance at Ryan, who was, seriously, staring in rapt attention at Indiana driving a jeep, and rolled his eyes. It was all too easy to forget, sometimes, how nerdy Ryan could be, in the face of how seriously Ryan took himself.

"Indiana Jones?" he asked, wiggling his toes into Ryan's ribcage until Ryan passed him the popcorn.

"I forgot how awful the first ones were," Ryan said, voice hushed and awed. "How did Harrison Ford ever get the reputation of a good actor, seriously?"

"That's blasphemy," Brendon informed him, but they were pretty hilariously bad movies, especially with Ryan repeating some of the Doom and Gloom lines of dialogue after the characters in a quiet, delighted voice, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Brendon sprawled on his side so that he could drum along on the coffee table during the really ominous bits of music, warbling in high, melodramatic lines over the top of them that made Ryan laugh. After the first one ended Ryan put on the second, and Brendon was just starting to think about making some toasted sandwiches when Ryan moved up the couch and kissed him.

"Anyway, I thought I'd blow you now," he said, and Brendon choked.

"Um," he said, and Ryan gave him a fondly indulgent look, as if Brendon was a little kid who was being stupid – and wow, could Brendon have come up with a _more_ inappropriate analogy? – and then shuffled down between Brendon's legs, popped the button on his jeans. He pulled jeans and underwear down and took Brendon's cock in his warm, dry hand, stroked him once, twice, before ducking his head and licking a stripe up the underside of Brendon's cock. Brendon let his head fall back against the couch, stared mindlessly up at the ceiling, fully hard now, and Ryan tongued at the slit for a moment before bobbing down properly, mouth hot and wet around Brendon's cock.

Ryan was good at this, which Brendon hadn't expected. As far as Brendon knew, Ryan had never been with a guy before, all teenaged kisses at parties and crushes on Pete Wentz aside. He did this well, though, eyelashes dark against his skin, cheeks hollowed, face smooth and intent, and he didn't jerk away when Brendon reached down and curled his fingers in Ryan's hair; instead, he hummed a little and pushed back against Brendon's touch for a moment. When Brendon made himself focus, he could see Ryan's hips rutting shallowly against the couch, Ryan palming himself with his free hand.

" _Ryan_ ," Brendon panted, and his hips jerked up involuntarily. He sucked in a breath and said, "Sorry, sorry," and Ryan pulled off for a moment, looking up at him.

"It's okay," he said, voice thick. "It's alright, I like it."

Brendon stared but Ryan just swallowed him down again, and this time he went deeper, until Brendon could feel his cock brushing the back of Ryan's throat. He groaned and thrust up again despite himself, felt Ryan forcibly relax his throat and take it all, every helpless, stuttered push of Brendon's hips, Brendon's cock.

"Ryan," he said. "I'm gonna," and Ryan hummed around his cock and pulled back enough that when Brendon came, he swallowed it all neatly.

"Holy shit," Brendon managed to say, and Ryan laughed softly and licked Brendon clean, petting Brendon's hip soothingly when he whined and jerked away instinctively, cock twitching and oversensitive. "C'mere," Brendon said, and Ryan crawled up and kissed him, traces of Brendon still on his tongue. Brendon pushed his hand into Ryan's pants and said, hot against Ryan's ear, "I'll do you, if you want," and Ryan jerked up into his hand and came, gasping soundless words into Brendon's neck.

Brendon blinked at him again and Ryan slumped on top of him, nose tucked against Brendon's jaw, both of them still half-undressed and out of breath. "That was, uh, quicker than expected," Brendon said, and Ryan smiled against him.

"I like it," he said, "I like doing that," and Brendon thought, _I like you_ , eyeing Ryan uneasily and wishing it was just that, wishing he had a clue what was going on in Ryan's head. After a moment he nudged Ryan up, and Ryan made a plaintive noise but shifted away enough for Brendon to tuck himself back into his pants, following suit. Then he sagged back on top of Brendon, humming something idle in his ear and tapping his fingers on Brendon's shoulder along with the melody. His rhythm was off.

It was comfortable, Ryan having adjusted his weight so that he wasn't squashing the breath out of Brendon or anything, and it was kind of nice to just lie there, the two of them like they hadn't been in months. Brendon thought again, _this was the right thing to do_ , and he said, "Hey," and turned his head. Ryan knew him, like Ryan had always known him, and he caught Brendon's mouth in a slow, lazy kiss. It was light at first, their mouths brushing like wings, and then Ryan sighed and sank closer, sucking Brendon's bottom lip into his mouth, and it was hot in a subdued way, everything in dim light. Brendon felt like it should be afternoon, the sun spreading warm over him, and Ryan got distracted stroking some of Brendon's hair behind his ear, repeated the motion after the need for it was gone, nails scratching gently over his skin. Brendon hummed, and pushed back against him.

"Hey," he said, quietly, breaking away. "You've done this before, huh?"

Ryan blinked at him. "Does it matter?"

Brendon considered. "Not really," he said. "I just. I thought you were straight."

"Yeah, well," Ryan said, and pushed back against Brendon. He was half-hard, and Brendon was too, but he didn't feel any particularly urgent need to deal with it. "Everyone's like, flexible and stuff, you know, so it doesn't even—"

"Ryan, seriously," Brendon said, rolling his eyes. "I asked if you'd done something before, not to give me your new hipster theory on the nature of existence and sexuality."

"Whatever," Ryan grumbled, and kissed him again, and Brendon wound an arm around him and stopped talking for a while, until another thought occurred to him.

"Weekend tomorrow," he murmured against Ryan's mouth. "You wanna crash here?"

Ryan smiled at him, eyes dark. "Are you gonna molest me in my sleep again?" he asked, and Brendon leered at him.

"Only if you want," he said, and Ryan laughed, pushing his face against Brendon's neck, breath light against his collarbone.

"I want," Ryan said, quietly. _I don't understand you at all,_ Brendon thought, but he felt for once like he didn't mind so much.

He yawned into the next kiss and Ryan laughed again, sitting up. "Bed?" he suggested, and his eyes were dark enough that Brendon had a feeling sleep wasn't the only thing on offer. He let Ryan pull him up and they walked together, not touching, but enough that Ryan was warm in his space.

They paused in the hallway when Ryan pressed Brendon up against the wall and kissed him again, and Brendon whispered, feeling stupid with slow, warm happiness and honest with that, "This is good, this is – I'm glad everything happened the way it did."

Ryan took an abrupt step away. "What?" he said, frowning.

Brendon frowned back at him. "What what?"

"Are you serious?" Ryan snapped. "All the stuff – everything, everything is _good_? Are you fucking serious?"

Brendon clenched his hands into fists. "Are you talking to me about the band splitting up, Ryan?" he asked coldly. "Because I kind of got the impression that you were too busy enjoying your new life and ignoring anything of any sort of importance to even think about that."

"Don't turn this on me," Ryan snarled. "You're the one who said, who said – you're glad that like, whatever happened, because now we can _fuck_?"

"I'm glad," Brendon said, slowly, deliberately, "that you _left the band_ because we can't make music together anymore. The fact that you're still talking to me is a side bonus."

"Fuck you," Ryan said, and walked out. He slammed every door behind him.

\---

Brendon tried to calm down and just go to bed, but he was shaking with fury and too confused to think his way through it properly. After an hour he got in his car and drove around to Spencer's, even though Spencer had closed down the studio early today with the promise that he'd stay out of Brendon's face for "a whole forty-eight hours, imagine that", smiling kind and delighted at Brendon. Spencer was still up, anyway, and when Brendon stepped forward tentatively he opened his arms and gave the hug Brendon needed, firm and tight and with a comfortable shoulder to bury his face again.

Brendon breathed in deep and said, "Ryan's an asshole."

"Hold the front page," Spencer said, and pushed Brendon through the doorway. He'd made some sort of stew that tasted amazing and Brendon wolfed it down, suddenly reminded that he hadn't eaten much besides popcorn yet. Spencer asked, "So what did he do?"

"I don't even know what goes on in his head," Brendon said, rage bubbling up in him again. "He freaked about – whatever, I don't get it. I said that it was good we could still hang out after the band thing, and he freaked out. He doesn't act like he gives a _shit_ about the band most of the time! He doesn’t act like he gives a shit about anything, and I don't think he does, but it suits him to get all morally self-righteous about shit when he feels like it. Like he wasn't the one who broke it up in the first place!"

"That's a bit unfair," Spencer said quietly, and Brendon let out a shuddering breath and attempted a smile. It didn't work very well.

"I know," he said. "Sorry. I'm. It gets so fucking tiring hanging out with him. It's like you always have to be on your guard. I don't understand why he does anything."

"Maybe you need a break," Spencer said. Brendon shook his head miserably.

"If I don't talk to him now," he said, "he'll never talk to me again."

Spencer looked at him and bit his lip, looking a little frustrated. "I don't know what you want me to tell you," he said. "Ryan's a prick a lot of the time. If you want to talk to him, you've gotta deal with that."

Brendon went to sleep in Spencer's spare room, curled up with the covers pulled tight all around him. He had uneasy, frightening dreams full of danger and the dark all night, and woke thinking it was Thursday and Ryan was pressed up against him. It took a moment for him to adjust to where he actually was, staring up at the ceiling and cataloguing the places where the plaster flaked.

He called Ryan when he woke up again, around eleven. Ryan didn't answer so he left a rambling message, said, "Anyway, you're still an asshole but I pissed you off somehow and I don't know why, and I don't want to fight, so, whatever." On a whim, he took a breath and added, "Shane's having a barbecue thing this afternoon, it'd be cool if you came." Ryan didn't call him back, though, and he didn't respond to the texts Brendon sent him through the course of the day.

"You alright, man?" Shane asked, and Brendon looked up at him and smiled, rolling his eyes and pushing his phone back in his pocket.

"Yeah," he said. "Sweating the small stuff. It doesn't even matter, sorry, dude."

"S'cool," Shane said. "When are you going to invite me back into the studio?" He raised his hands and took an exaggerated mimed picture; Brendon tossed his head back and preened, then laughed.

"Soon," he promised. "Maybe you should come on tour with us, you know? It'd be cool to have, like, a record of it."

"Maybe," Shane said, and touched Brendon's arm. "You're having fun, huh?"

Brendon bit his lip and tilted his head to the side. "It feels like it should be weirder than this," he said, low. "It feels like it shouldn't be so – I kind of feel like it's a, betrayal or something ridiculous, to be just."

"Yeah?" Shane prompted, and Brendon laughed again, couldn't stop the smile spreading over his face.

"I'm having so much fun," he confided. "So, so much." Shane laughed at that, too, and pulled him into a hug, and Brendon took over the barbecue, and returned home late to find his house undisturbed.

Sunday was a slow day. He'd made vague plans to go out with Eric and some other guys but ended up passing on them in favour of wandering aimlessly around his house. He went down to the beach for a while, but the surf wasn't very good and Brendon wasn't in the mood, anyway. He went back to his house instead and tried calling Ryan again, but Ryan was still being a douche and not answering his phone, and Brendon was starting to get pissed about that again.

He went to sleep ridiculously early, drifting off around eleven with the vague idea that he could wake up at eight and head straight into the studio. Instead he slept until eleven, and went in to apologise still feeling lethargic and sluggish.

"Hey," Spencer said. He was already at his kit when Brendon came in, face flushed and sweaty, hair falling in his eyes. He looked at Brendon and then frowned. "You alright?"

Brendon made a face. "Do I look that bad?"

"Just kind of pale," Spencer said, and John laid a palm against Brendon's forehead. He had a slight temperature, apparently, but no real symptoms besides the tiredness. Spencer said, "Let's just do keyboard parts, we need them anyway," though, and Brendon was kind of relieved. His voice felt stuck in his throat.

By dinner, he was feeling better, though he hadn't played very well today, music fuzzy in his head. They ate at a Mexican place that had opened just down the road, almost devouring their quesadillas whole. Spencer was humming one of the demos they'd recorded last week and Brendon beamed across the table at him, and stole some of his nachos. Spencer was laughing too much to care.

He got home still in a good mood, singing softly to himself. It took him a moment to notice the lights on in his house, another to realise the door was open, and he'd barely opened his mouth in the hallway to call out before Ryan appeared out of the dark and kissed him.

Ryan's mouth tasted hot and pleasantly bitter like coffee, and Brendon thought he could taste smoke under that, licking out the traces of it. Ryan pressed closer and Brendon's bag slid down his arm and onto the floor, letting Brendon curl his arm around Ryan's waist and pull him in closer, sliding a hand into Ryan's back pocket. Ryan made a small, appreciative sound and Brendon took it for permission, palmed Ryan's ass and used his grip to drag Ryan up closer, their cocks brushing rough against each other through layers of material.

"So I guess you got over yourself," Brendon said, breaking away to breathe. Ryan grinned at him. It didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Yeah, well," Ryan said. "You're an asshole, what else is new."

Brendon arched his eyebrows, glad to be kissing Ryan but ready to launch into an argument if he had to. He wasn't going to take responsibility for the fight. "Seriously?" he said. "You're the one who got pissed off in the most hypocritical way ever."

Ryan just shrugged, looking rueful. "Well," he said. "You _make_ me an asshole."

Brendon stared at him, not quite sure what that meant in Ryan's head, and Ryan shrugged again and leaned back in. "Anyway," he said. "I missed this."

"A whole weekend of this," Brendon said, waggling his eyebrows. "Your bad."

"Uh-huh," Ryan said, and dragged Brendon's shirt up over his head, dropping it on the floor. "Hi," he said, and pushed Brendon up against the wall, stooping to suck kisses into Brendon's throat, mouthing a path down over Brendon's collarbones and nipples until Brendon was panting, cock straining in his jeans.

"Ryan," he said, when he couldn't take it anymore, needed something more substantial than Ryan's hot breath against his sternum. Ryan came up eagerly, letting Brendon tug him into another kiss, tongues sliding together with a sharp, warm shock in Brendon's chest, Ryan's mouth hot and swollen on his own. Brendon clenched his hand in Ryan's – totally unnecessary, what the fuck – tie, and twisted it around his fingers before stepping to the side, pulling Ryan after him.

"C'mon," he said. "S'fucking cold here."

He meant to lead Ryan to the bedroom, but Ryan was impatient and stopped him in the living room, pushing him down on the sofa and straddling him easily, looking down at him with dark eyes. Brendon drew Ryan in by his tie and Ryan followed willingly. Brendon thought that he would never get sick of kissing Ryan, that he could do it forever, blood roaring in his ears, cock almost painfully hard in his jeans, with Ryan's slim, bony weight settled on top of him and his hands clutching at Brendon's shoulders, then sliding past to loop around Brendon's back, hot against his back skin.

Brendon broke away and said, "Shirt?"

"If you hadn't messed up the knot in my tie," Ryan said crossly, but moved back to pick with long, slender fingers at the tightened knot, eventually loosening it enough to pull over his head. Brendon was already there with the buttons, pushing his shirt back over his shoulders, and they exchanged a quick grin.

"Teamwork," Brendon said, and Ryan laughed. Brendon bent to nip sharply at one of Ryan's nipples, and Ryan's laughter cut off quickly in a groan low in his throat, hands fluttering wildly in the air for a moment, as if unsure where to settle. Then he was kissing Brendon again, and everything was hot and hazy, the world rushing past them.

"Hey," Brendon said, when Ryan bit hard on his lip, almost viciously. Ryan pulled back enough to lick at it soothingly, but Brendon tightened his hold in Ryan's hair and tugged his head up, made him meet Brendon's gaze. "You alright?"

"Sure," Ryan said, smiling brightly down at him. "Wanna fuck?"

Brendon blinked and said, "Here?" but Ryan was already laughing again and pushing down his pants, first rummaging in his pocket and pulling out lube and a condom. Brendon drew in a sharp breath, thought about Ryan showering this morning (or afternoon, which was probably more likely), Ryan showering and getting dressed, all with this in mind, this intent, to come here and wrestle off Brendon's jeans and boxers and sink between Brendon's spread legs to the floor. He put the condom on over Brendon's cock and then slid his mouth down quickly, not bothering to be neat, getting Brendon wet and ready.

He pulled off grimacing. "Latex," he said, making a face and crawling back onto Brendon's lap, their cocks brushing and making them moan in unison. Brendon picked up the lube and got his fingers slick, and Ryan looked grateful. He spread himself out over Brendon, their cocks trapped together between their stomach, Ryan's knees still pressing on either side of Brendon's hips, ass lifted slightly in the air, and he pressed his face into Brendon's neck, breathing shallowly, when Brendon pushed the first finger in.

"Alright?" Brendon asked.

"Yeah," Ryan said breathlessly, "yeah, yeah, just – give me more," and Brendon did what he was told. "Ah, fuck," Ryan gasped, and lifted his head to kiss Brendon, making tiny, breathless sounds every time Brendon twisted his fingers; these small, guttural "uh, uh, uh" noises stuttering out of him that Brendon had never heard before, not even on the inevitable occasions in vans and buses when they'd heard each other jerk off. Brendon stared, wide-eyed. _Seriously_ , he thought, _what have you been doing, where have you been, without me_. He wasn't quite ready for the possessive surge in his chest, dark and fierce, and he leaned up slightly to suck at Ryan's pulse point, making Ryan groan.

He kept it at two fingers for a while, fucking them in and out of Ryan, feeling Ryan's muscles clench around him every time he crooked them inside, and Ryan moaned something that sounded like _please_. Brendon added a third and kept watching in dark-eyed fascination as Ryan rocked back onto his fingers, rubbing his cock against Brendon's. Brendon turned his head and caught Ryan's mouth in a kiss, pushing his fingers in at once, a little harder than before, searching for the right spot, and Ryan cried out and came over their stomachs in a hot rush.

Brendon was caught off-guard, but after a moment he started to laugh despite himself, stroking his free hand over Ryan's back and nuzzling in at Ryan's hairline, Ryan's face hidden in Brendon's shoulder. "Hey," he said, singsong. " _Ry_ an. Want to help me jerk off?"

He began to ease his fingers out, gently, but Ryan moved so fast that Brendon didn't have time to think before Ryan had a hold of Brendon's wrist, keeping him where he was. " _Don't_ ," he said, raising his head. His cheeks were slightly red, but mostly he just looked satisfied, and maybe a little smug.

"You kind of beat me to it there," Brendon said, and Ryan shifted back onto Brendon's fingers again, humming slightly. He leaned down and kissed Brendon, and Brendon shivered and arched up against him, drawing him in closer with his free arm.

"Just," Ryan said. "Give me a minute," and yeah, Brendon thought, as Ryan rocked his hips down cautiously, stomach slick against Brendon's cock, yeah, he could do that.

\---

Ryan stayed the night, but didn't wake up when Brendon did, and Brendon left without saying goodbye. He texted Ryan saying that he and Spencer were going out to lunch at a restaurant Ryan liked, asking if Ryan wanted to come along, but didn't get a response. It wasn't a huge surprise to come home and find the house empty, but Brendon was starting to feel a little uneasy again. He called Ryan, but went straight through to voicemail.

He crashed on the couch and dozed in front of the TV, drifting in and out of consciousness until he was forced fully awake by a persistent knocking on his door. He dragged himself up and answered it mid-yawn, letting Ryan in groggily.

"Hi," Ryan said. "Sorry, I left my key at home."

Brendon mumbled some small form of a reply and Ryan led their way back into the living room, collapsed on the couch Brendon had just vacated, kicking off his shoes. "Awesome," he said, turning to the movie marathon on TV in delight.

Brendon blinked at him in disbelief. "You _stole my spot_ ," he said.

"Get over it," Ryan said, and Brendon huffed, affronted, and then tumbled down over Ryan, stretching out and letting his full weight fall on Ryan. Ryan gasped and laughed in surprise and Brendon grinned, settling himself on Ryan. It was meant to be a joke, payback, but after a moment Ryan adjusted himself and went back to watching the TV, and Brendon found himself comfortable and sleepy and warm, drifting back to sleep with his head on a cushion between the join of Ryan's neck and shoulder.

He woke up a little while later to Ryan murmuring in his ear, words indistinguishable in a way that his intent was not, teeth scraping a little on Brendon's ear as he spoke. Brendon didn't think it was an accident. He stirred and Ryan put his arms around him, keeping him still, sliding both hands into the back pockets of Brendon's jeans and dragging him down to grind against Ryan.

Brendon moaned, turning his head so that he could muffle the sound against Ryan's neck, wet and sleepy-sloppy. Ryan laughed breathlessly and forced Brendon's legs apart, lying between them and then hooking his legs over Brendon's ankles, holding him in close and keeping him there, pressed down tight against Ryan. Brendon shifted his head again, searching, and Ryan helped him, tilting his head to kiss Brendon, their mouths moving slow on each other. Ryan slid his hands out of Brendon's pockets and around to trace the seam of his jeans, pressing up hard behind Brendon's balls, making Brendon gasp and buck forward.

Ryan laughed softly, pulling away from Brendon's mouth and brushing his lips along the line of Brendon's cheekbone. "You like that?" he murmured, and he ran his hands down again, a steady line of pressure. "I could work you open, get you all stretched and ready for me, and then fuck you hard, put your legs up over my shoulders and just fuck you, not stop even if it was too much, if you couldn't breathe properly, just keep you beneath me and watch you take it."

Brendon stared at him, mouth open. He could hear the strained, helpless noises he was making, trying to grind down against Ryan's dick and make Ryan grope his ass again at the same time, but he couldn't bring himself to be embarrassed. Not with Ryan saying those things, voice low and too clear in Brendon's ear, too unaffected.

"You'd like that too, huh," Ryan said, not taking his eyes off Brendon, and Brendon nodded and bit at Ryan's throat, his jaw, if Ryan wouldn't let Brendon have his mouth. Ryan made a small, ragged sound himself, and then took a breath and kept talking, voice a little rough now.

"Yeah," he said, "yeah, you'd like it. Maybe one day we'll check that it's safe and then I'll fuck you without a condom, just you and me, and I can push in and take it slow, make you squirm and beg before I come, fill you up with it. And then fuck you again and use that as lube, fuck you 'til you can't take it anymore, wet and dirty with—"

"Ryan," Brendon gasped, and Ryan said, "—me," and dragged Brendon down, dragged him close. Brendon really didn't want to come in his pants again – it seemed like a major step back, especially after actual nakedness – but it was too hard to hold himself back, not with Ryan underneath him but controlling everything, dictating each rough drag of their hips. Brendon breathed in ragged, hitching breaths, turning his head frantically until Ryan relented and kissed him, biting at his mouth, and Brendon let himself be shoved down once more, hard, and came.

Ryan waited, and then he pushed gently at Brendon until Brendon shifted off enough for Ryan to unbutton his pants and get his cock out, tilting his head back on the arm of the couch and gasping when he closed his hand around his dick. Brendon's brain was still a little fuzzy, post-orgasm and -nap, but he got it working enough to shimmy down the couch and take Ryan's cock in his mouth, bob down and up and then choke when Ryan came, filling his mouth unexpectedly. He swallowed what he could, and Ryan sat up and licked around his mouth where he'd let some dribble out, cleaning him up.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Brendon looked down at his lap and grimaced at how sticky his briefs felt, and Ryan smiled. "I kind of need a shower, too," he said, and Brendon let Ryan lead him into his own bathroom, head still feeling a little dizzy. They didn't actually do much of anything in the shower besides kiss. Brendon felt warm and content, though, laughed at the way Ryan stole Brendon's best towel and then stood waiting, as if he didn't know how to get dressed or to Brendon's bedroom without him.

Once they were dressed again, Brendon asked, towelling his hair dry, "Do you feel like doing something? I could go for going out, but I almost just wanna stay on the couch some more with movies or whatever. Or I guess we could have an early night," he added, leering cheerfully at Ryan.

"Oh," Ryan said, looking surprised and regretful. "Oh, I – I'm sorry, Brendon, I'm going out with Z and some friends in about half an hour. We're going to some new club, I don't know."

"Right," Brendon said, dropping the towel. He hoped his voice only sounded weird to himself. "Well, that's cool, obviously. Have a good time."

"You could," Ryan began hesitantly, and that was a really dumb thing to say, and also an excuse, so Brendon turned around and raised his eyebrows, just a little too mockingly. Ryan stopped, swallowed down his sentence and tried again. "I mean. I am sorry."

"It's cool," Brendon said, forcing his face back into a smile. He tried not to think about Z. He'd only met her once, and she'd been nice, but also a little intimidating, frightening with how pretty she was, self-assured and confident in a natural kind of way, the way Brendon could never be. Ryan had watched her the whole night with the delighted, smug look of awe he always got when he saw girls he wanted. Brendon repeated, "Have a good time."

"Yeah," Ryan said. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Sure," Brendon said.

Ryan nodded awkwardly and bent to tie his shoes. Brendon stared at Ryan's bowed head for a moment, his curling hair, and then he went and walked over to his dresser, picked up his phone for the sake of something to do with his hands. He scrolled through a couple of new messages without really reading them.

"Brendon," Ryan said, and Brendon turned reluctantly. Ryan was standing at looking at him, fingers white-knuckled around the fedora he had retrieved from somewhere, face oddly afraid. "If you don't want me to sleep with her," he said, "I won't."

"What?" Brendon said blankly.

"Z," Ryan said, gaze fixed on Brendon's face. "I won't sleep with her, if you ask me not to."

"I – Ryan," Brendon said, and laughed helplessly. "It's got nothing to do with me. We're not – do what you want."

"But if you want," Ryan persisted. "If you want me not to sleep with her, then I won't. If you ask me."

Brendon swallowed, throat suddenly tight. "Okay," he said. "That would be nice. I'd like it if you didn't have sex with her."

Ryan nodded, and he looked relieved. "I'll see you later," he said, and left Brendon blinking at his now empty room.

\---

Brendon opened his mouth and sang, twisted the cord around his wrist and pushed his hips and chest out, filled the room with his own voice, made it the only thing he could hear, fierce and unrelenting and joyous. Then he stumbled over the line and laughed, too loud, too raucous, said, "Sorry, dudes, lemme try again," and _did_ , and nothing could stop him, nothing in the world.

He picked out a new line on guitar when he was meant to be laying down something they'd worked out almost a week ago. The idea of it spun him into a new idea, new headspace, and he spent an hour with the guitar trying out new lines, cutting over the top of Spencer every time Spencer started to look pissed off and tried to intervene, blocking him out with a new riff, a new sequence that filled his ears, made the roaring in them his own.

They took a break while John played around with some weird new sound that had cropped up in the demo, trying to sort out where they'd gone wrong, and Brendon paced around the room, jumped up on the couch to peer out the window, hating every moment that kept him from playing. He could feel a snarl building in his throat, and then he replaced it with laughter instead, kept himself full-full-full, room for nothing and no one else.

"Brendon," Spencer said, and Brendon spun around and grinned at him. Spencer's mouth twisted downward sharply. "What's up with you?" he asked. "You've been manic all day."

"I'm fine," Brendon said, and laughed. "Sorry, too much coffee this morning or something."

"Brendon," Spencer said. Brendon met his gaze squarely.

"I'm _fine_ ," he said.

Spencer still looked unhappy. "Then we might as well stop," he said. "Jeez, Brendon, we're going to San Diego day after tomorrow and you can't stop moving long enough to do one run through."

"Sure I can," Brendon said, feeling guilty. He sank down on the sofa next to Spencer and felt, in the one movement, suddenly tired. He sagged back against the cushions and Spencer looked at him with blue, blue eyes.

"What's up?" he asked softly.

"Um," Brendon said. He stared at the drum kit and said, "Things have been kind of weird lately. With Ryan."

"You guys still fighting?" Spencer asked.

"No," Brendon said. "No." He drew in a breath and admitted, with a vague sense of foreboding, "We've been fooling around, sorta."

Spencer didn't respond and after a moment Brendon risked a glance at him, and winced. Spencer's gaze was hard, and distinctly unimpressed. "You mean sex," he said flatly.

"Well," Brendon said. "Well, yeah."

"Jesus Christ," Spencer said, and rubbed his face tiredly with his hands. "You always do this, you two. You always mess each other up."

"I – we don't," Brendon protested. "We maybe haven't had the smoothest working relationship in the world but it's not like—"

"It's not like what?" Spencer interrupted, folding his arms. "Are you honestly telling me that everything is fine between you guys? That you're fucking but it's an easy, friends with benefits thing, or it's more than that, but you're both being completely cool and natural about it and everyone's motives are crystal clear? Jesus _Christ_! You two have been fucking with each other's heads for as long as you've known each other! I'm just amazed you hadn't worked out this novel new method before!"

Brendon said, slowly, "You don't seem to be surprised."

"No," Spencer said scathingly. "No, because I worked out a long time ago that as smart as you are about all kinds of shit, you are monumentally _moronic_ when it comes to Ryan."

"No," Brendon said. "I mean, you don't seem particularly surprised that Ryan's having sex with me. A guy."

Spencer went still, face guarded. "No," he agreed.

"So I'm guessing you've known for a while," Brendon said. "That Ryan's not straight, I mean. Which is weird, because I can't think of any particular moment in the last six years when he might have come out to you but not me or Jon. Unless."

"I've always known," Spencer said. The anger was gone from his voice. He looked warily at Brendon, said, "He told me a long time ago. Before we knew you."

"That's what I figured," Brendon said. "Which is strange again, because when we were sixteen, I asked and you told me that he was straight."

"What do you think would have happened?" Spencer asked tiredly. "You had a stupid crush. Ryan was even more fucked up then than he is now. What did you honestly think would have happened, Brendon? You would have made a move and you'd be, what, married or something now? And not only would the band have survived that particular relationship, but it'd still be together now?"

"I would have liked it," Brendon said carefully, standing up, "if you hadn't lied to me." He took a breath and added, "You're right. I think we'd better stop for today."

"Brendon," Spencer said, rising to his feet. "Jesus fucking Christ, it wasn't my secret to tell. You're getting pissed at me for this, _really_?"

"I can't do any more today," Brendon said. At the door, he relented and turned around, smiled crookedly. He wasn't very good at being an asshole to Spencer. "I'm not – I'm sorry. It's not your fault. You were right to start with. I just wish – sometimes it's like you forget that not everyone can see stuff through logically and shit all the time. Or even if you can, it's not enough to stop you dong it."

"Yeah," Spencer said. He still looked kind of angry, but there was a sort of resignation in his face now. "You should come over to my place, if you need to."

"I know that," Brendon said. He did, but he was glad Spencer had said it again, anyway. It was always a relief to have Spencer call him on his shit, and stick around regardless. "Thanks." He crossed the floor and Spencer hugged him, pulling him in tight and close.

"I wouldn't lie to you like that anymore," Spencer said. "If that's what you're messed up about."

 _Not really,_ Brendon thought, but didn't say anything. Instead he nodded, moving back and offering his fist for Spencer to bump. "Band code," he said.

He got home around two, nearly six hours earlier than most days, but Ryan was already there. In fact he was lying in Brendon's bed with dark sunglasses on, and when Brendon came in he sat up and smiled, slowly, until it settled like something warm and content over his whole face. Brendon's stomach got busy twisting itself into knots.

"You're back early," Ryan said. He pushed up his sunglasses – why was he even _wearing_ sunglasses – and he looked tired and a little hung-over, but mostly he just looked glad.

"I'm going surfing," Brendon said shortly, and stripped with his back turned to Ryan, getting into his wetsuit. He could feel Ryan's eyes lingering on him but didn't turn around until he was fully dressed. He raised his hand in a half-hearted salute, or wave, or _something_ , and went outside, picking up his board from the laundry room and heading in a trot down to the beach, eager to get out there, eager to get away.

The waves were good, and for a couple of hours Brendon let himself forget about everything back on land. He concentrated on beating each new best wave with another, or taking the ones he usually wouldn't dare. He got dumped more times than he could count, knocking the breath out of himself again and again, coming up gasping and clutching for his board and letting himself float until that terrifying grip of panic was gone, the one that came every time he was shoved underwater and tumbled around until he didn't know which way was up.

After a while the tide changed, the big waves replaced with ones that broke too close to shore. Brendon was surprised to notice how sore his body was, aching all over like it hadn't since he'd first started surfing. He still didn't go in, though, paddled out past the waves and lay on his board, watching the sun sink past the horizon and letting the water wash over him. He sang snippets of songs to himself, things that wandered into his head, things he'd been working on, gasping with surprised laughter when a wave washed salty water into his mouth. He couldn't see his house very clearly. He was glad.

It was summer, but Brendon had been out in the water for hours and he was beginning to shiver, taking a while to notice his teeth chattering over the roar and swell of the ocean. He rested his cheek on his folded arms and wondered how he had lived in Vegas for so long, had let himself think of the beach as something to have in summer holidays and trips to his grandma's place in Florida. It seemed fairly stupid.

The current tugged his surfboard in slow circles. Brendon thought about how he'd felt sick the other day, how now was absolutely not the right time to get ill. He slipped off his board and dived down into the water, resisting the urge to open his eyes. He kicked down instead, until he could skim his fingers along the sand of the bottom, skating for a few feet on his stomach. When he came up, his surfboard was only a little way away from him, bobbing and waiting patiently. Brendon kicked his legs up and floated on his back, staring at the darkening sky. There were a few clusters of stars out. He wondered which had been the first.

He swam back to shore reluctantly, taking a roundabout way, diving underwater again, holding competitions with himself to see how long he could stay there, trying handstands with the waves buffeting him back and forth. At one point a crab bit his foot and he yelped and clutched his surfboard, paddling forward without touching the ground until he was sure he was out of range.

When he couldn't think of anything else to postpone going in, and he was starting to get seriously cold, he ducked his head once more in the sea. Then he came out properly, clutched his board under one arm, and went up to his house.

Ryan was sitting on the back porch, reading a book in the fading light with his glasses on. He looked up calmly and said, "I thought you'd drowned."

"Good to know you were ready to charge down and save me," Brendon said.

Ryan shook his head, smiling. "Not really," he said. "I can see you swimming from here. Were you having an existential crisis out there?"

Brendon just looked at him. He didn't have any answers left. He said, abruptly, "Me and Spence are going to San Diego on Thursday. To play at the Jennifer's Body thing."

"Oh," Ryan said. "Okay, then."

Brendon chewed on the inside of his cheek, resisting the urge to glare. "You have fun last night?" he asked.

"Yeah," Ryan said, smiling, and stretched out. "They're good fun, those girls. It's like – Z doesn't take anything seriously, we can just trip people out. Last night we told everyone that we were twins."

Brendon nodded, something uncomfortable twisting at his stomach. It wasn't that he thought Ryan had had sex with Z anyway, didn't even need to ask, it was just—

"You don't have to pretend you didn't know," Brendon said. "About San Diego, I mean. I know you. You're keeping tabs on every new thing online."

"I'm not doing anything." Ryan looked guarded for a moment, and his voice was still expressionless when he pointed out, "You're shivering."

"I stayed out there for too long," Brendon said, and dropped his board. "I'm going to go take a shower. Then I guess we can order a pizza or something. But I've got to pack."

He turned the shower on as hot as he liked and marvelled at how clean his fingernails were, the way they always got after a trip to the beach. He'd read somewhere that you could clean your scalp by rubbing sand into it, too, but he washed his hair anyway, tugging his hands through salt-crusted knots.

He didn't hear the door open, but when he opened his eyes Ryan was sliding aside the glass shower door and stepping in. Brendon looked at Ryan's mouth and his half-hard cock and imagined sliding to his knees, not being able to hear the sounds Ryan made over the sound of the water, like he was back in the surf again. First, though, he manhandled Ryan gently in under the spray, stepped aside enough that he could get Ryan's hair completely wet, Ryan's goosebumps fading away, before he moved back in to share the circle of hot water. Ryan pressed his forehead to Brendon's shoulder, even though he had to bend uncomfortably to do it, and Brendon curved his hand around Ryan's neck and thought about catching eight waves in a row and thinking each time _last one, and then I'll go back_. It was a metaphor, but not the one he was looking for.

"What's that?" Brendon said, and Ryan shook his head, raising his face to Brendon's.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," Ryan said. Brendon kissed him, and went down to his knees.

\---

Brendon left early on Thursday morning with Ryan fast asleep in his bed, and came back late Friday night to the same thing. It was another odd, disconnected moment, where Brendon had the distinct impression that something was wrong in the way he was living things, like living his life as someone other than the protagonist of it, or watching it shot through a camera, and for a moment he just stood in the doorway. Not least, he kind of begrudged Ryan for making it seem as if he had never been gone, as if he had never sat on stage with Spencer smiling at him from off at the side and played music on his own, and felt _good_ about it, felt strong and capable with it. The surprise was starting to soften, a little bit, and he wasn't so shocked when words came out easily anymore. It had become something else: a slow, constant glow of happiness in his chest, in the pit of his stomach. He didn't like that Ryan could make it seem as if that was there for no reason, the past forty-eight hours momentarily wiped away. He also wasn't sure if he liked that it didn't go anywhere, watching Ryan and feeling terribly, hopelessly confused, but also glad.

Then he kicked off his shoes and his clothes and crawled into bed, because he was tired and happy from a really awesome two days, and because he was learning to take good things when they came, and somehow that would always include Ryan asleep in his bed. Besides, it meant that his bed was warm, and Brendon didn't have any qualms about shimmying closer to Ryan and pressing his nose against Ryan's shoulder. Ryan was wearing a t-shirt and boxers, and he smelled good, sleep-soft and warm.

"Hey," he mumbled groggily.

"Hi," Brendon said. "Did you even move in the past forty-eight hours?"

"Yeah," Ryan said, voice slurred with sleep. "We played a bit. I don't know. I think Jon's kind of pissed at me."

Brendon blinked. "Why?" he asked. "Aren't you two busy with all your hippie tributes? Free at last?"

"Don't," Ryan said. He burrowed closer to Brendon and Brendon stared down at his curly hair.

"Ryan," he said. "You alright?"

"I'm asleep," Ryan whispered. A few moments later, he actually was, but he stayed wound tight around Brendon, limbs heavy and warm where he threw them haphazardly over Brendon.

"No offence," Brendon said, as Ryan made a concerted effort to burrow into his armpit, "but this isn't exactly how I figured our band splitting up would go."

The next morning, Ryan was already up by the time Brendon stumbled out of his bedroom, sitting on Brendon's kitchen table, reading the paper, and swinging his bare feet back and forth over the counter.

"I'm making eggs," he told Brendon. "But hard-boiled, because I can't get poached ones to work." Brendon nodded blearily at him and turned the stovetop on when he went past to root through the fridge for orange juice. Ryan looked mildly interested, although Brendon couldn't tell if that was because he'd been wondering why the water wasn't boiling or because Brendon's ratty boxers were slipping down a little, baring his hipbones. Either way, after a moment Ryan went back to reading the paper, and Brendon ended up putting in the toast for the eggs and then serving them up himself.

"So really," he said when they were both eating, "what you managed to do was put some eggs in some cold water, and sit that on the stove."

"In a _saucepan_ in some cold water," Ryan corrected, and Brendon grinned at him and hooked his ankle around Ryan's under the table. Ryan pressed his cold foot to Brendon's.

"You are a weird fuck," Brendon said, mouth full, and Ryan made a face and pointedly finished chewing and swallowed before he responded.

"I'm not," he said, and then: "Why?"

"If you haven't worked it out by yet, I don't think there's much hope for you in correcting it," Brendon told him solemnly, and Ryan half-smiled. Brendon asked, "So why's Jon pissed at you?"

"What?" Ryan looked uneasy. "He's not."

"You said he was," Brendon said. "Last night."

"I can barely remember talking to you last night," Ryan said, shrugging. "I was really fucking tired, I probably dreamed we had a fight or something."

"Okay," Brendon said, and raised his eyebrows.

Ryan narrowed his eyes. "I hate it when you look at me like that," he said, sounding genuinely annoyed. "If you don't believe me, why don't you call him and ask?"

"I'm not that interested," Brendon said. "Besides, it's still kind of. You know. Awkward."

Ryan looked at him, clearly confused. "Why? You and Jon didn't fight."

"Yeah," Brendon said. "But it's still, like. The band split. It's awkward."

"It's not awkward for you and me," Ryan told him.

"Geez, sorry, Ryan," Brendon said, rolling his eyes. "I think you forget in your brilliance now and then that not everyone possesses the unique social skills of coming around, ignoring entirely someone being mad at you, and then having sex with them. I'll work on it, though."

Ryan smiled, dark and secretive. "You like having sex with me," he said.

"Eat your eggs," Brendon said severely. He shrugged. "Anyway, you haven't spoken to Spencer, even though you guys didn't fight, technically."

Ryan looked down. "Spencer's mad at me," he said. "He doesn't want to talk to me."

"Spencer wouldn't be mad at you if you weren't such a douche sometimes," Brendon said, sighing. "Seriously, Ryan, you're fucking weird about the whole thing. It's like it's all a joke or something. Spencer takes this stuff seriously." He waited, but Ryan didn't say anything, so after a while he added, "Anyway, _I_ didn't particularly want to talk to you, and that didn't stop you."

 _"You_ didn't get a choice," Ryan said. "Hey, you want to go see Funny People today?"

Brendon shoved the last bit of toast in his mouth and eyed Ryan darkly. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

\---

"I used to do cool things on Saturday nights," Ryan sighed. Brendon turned to give him an offended look.

"What exactly about watching the Food Network isn't cool?" he asked, and Ryan rolled his eyes.

"You've been hanging out with Spencer too long," Ryan said, and that felt weird. Brendon was getting pretty good at ignoring moments like that one, but he couldn't stop cataloguing them in his head.

"There's nothing else on," Brendon said instead, because if he kept fighting the point, Ryan would get bitchy about it, or stubborn and unmoving, insistent on whatever stupid argument he wanted to win, and if Brendon let him win he'd act like Brendon was being deliberately condescending, and if he didn't Ryan would get condescending himself, and start talking in that dry, slightly incredulous tone that Brendon hated. Brendon thought quickly, viciously, _that's another thing I'd have liked to get away from properly_ , but then he regretted it and made himself nudge at Ryan's thigh with his toes, friendly.

"We could go out," Ryan said. Brendon rolled his head to the side and stared at his reflection in the glass door for a moment, and then back to look at Ryan.

"I'm so tired, man," he said, quietly. He felt suddenly, awfully sad. "We're in the studio every day, and I'm trying to write an album, and I only got back from San Diego at like, ass o'clock last night, and we're about to go on tour. I'd like to, but I'm so fucking tired."

"Yeah, I get it," Ryan said. He wasn't looking at Brendon, and Brendon could feel his mouth twisting downward, feeling sick and sad and he was tired, he was, and he was sick of not knowing what was going on in Ryan's head anymore. He thought maybe it would be better if he and Ryan were fighting.

Ryan looked at him and then did a double take. "Hey," he said. "What's up?" Brendon shook his head, and Ryan crawled over from his side of the couch, kissed Brendon soft and steady, moving his mouth on Brendon's without being insistent about it until Brendon tilted his head up and kissed Ryan back. Ryan said, "You look sad," and Brendon shook his head again but leaned into Ryan anyway, fitted himself against Ryan and let Ryan kiss him and chase away the bitter taste in Brendon's mouth.

After a little while Ryan urged him up to his feet and they wandered into Brendon's bedroom, slow, taking their time about it, tripping over each other's feet a little. Brendon could still hear the murmur of the television because Ryan didn't close the door, but he didn't mind it so much, not when it made the rest of the house seem less empty. Brendon had read a couple of novels by different authors that all used the same phrase, the idea that the two lovers or whatever were the last people in the world, and the television balanced that out nicely, some cheerful lady with a bad perm in Brendon's living room telling him about the myths of cooking lobsters. Ryan fucked him slow and steady, Brendon's legs up high around his waist, and Brendon thought again about the romance novels and wondered at the strange joy inherent in that phrase, that concept. He couldn't think of anything more terrifying.

On Monday, Ian and Dallon flew in and they started rehearsing, and it was awesome. Ian and Dallon had learned the songs and they could just launch straight into it, sort each other out, work out how to play together. Ian was just – too fucking brilliant, beyond anyone Brendon had ever played with before, and there was something _about_ the way he played, a reckless energy and delight in it, the way he grinned at Brendon every time they slipped into a riff together just right. Brendon felt a little guilty, thinking about Ryan last night taking his time, staying deep inside Brendon, but Brendon had forgotten how much he loved playing with another guitarist, and Ian played music like he loved it too, sent pulses of energy darting up Brendon's spine, making him race to keep up. Brendon had forgotten, too, how much difference a bass meant, and Dallon kept time steadily beside him. He played in his socks, which gave Brendon a bit of a start from time to time, but mostly he just had his head ducked down and his smile growing.

By lunchtime – and they didn't stop for it until four in the afternoon – Brendon could feel it coursing through him, the crazy high and energy of playing in a group again, Spencer behind him and keeping him steady like Spencer always did, holding him there, making it so that it wasn't weird at all, it was just new and electric and fantastic. John came in and watched them for an hour or so afterwards and Brendon sang straight to him, swaggered around the practice space and felt alive playing music with guys he trusted behind him in a way he hadn't for ages, for too long.

He went home much later than usual, after a late night dinner with the guys and then out to a bar, but Ryan wasn't there anyway, and he was too exhausted to do anything but collapse into bed and sleep. The next morning he headed straight back into the studio, humming with it, and he pulled into the carpark at the same time as Spencer and had to get out of his car and stand on his tiptoes in Spencer's arms for a long time. Spencer was shaking a little.

"We're going to kick ass," Brendon said, and Spencer looked at him and nodded. His eyes were very bright. "I mean it," Brendon said. "You and me, kiddo."

"You're not that much older than me," Spencer said, and Brendon laughed and hugged Spencer again, pressing his face into Spencer's neck.

"Sometimes you do things," he said, "and you're not sure it's the right thing to do, and it's like, you never know, right? Because things can be fucking terrifying, and I'm not saying I'm not scared anymore, because I am, and it's weird to like – Ryan's still being kind of annoying and flippant about shit, and I haven't spoken to Jon and that really sucks, but I think it's gonna be alright, you and me, just you and me, because we're not on our own, but, like, we can be, if we need to be. You know?"

"I always know what you mean, fucker," Spencer said, and Brendon laughed a little shakily because he did, Spencer did, he always had.

"What's that song," he said. "The one you play late at night. Who's that band again?"

"Arcade Fire," Spencer said, and Brendon nodded and hummed the opening of it, and Spencer said, "Just like that." It was sunny and Brendon could feel the warmth of the day heating up the back of his t-shirt, not so bad that it would burn his skin if he chose to sprawl on the floor inside – and he could, he totally could if he wanted to, he felt like he could kind of do anything today. Which reminded him—

"Are you nervous?" he asked, and Spencer laughed, shook his head. Brendon could feel the movement of it over his own head.

"Not even a little bit," he said, and Brendon laughed, bright and delighted.

"Me either," he said. "I should be, right? Like, first song without them, but it's, I'm not even."

It was, Brendon thought, because it wasn't even really about the 'without', it was about what it did have, and he clutched tighter at Spencer, felt stupidly grateful and insanely happy. Things were falling into place, and it felt absurdly easy, it felt like it wasn't costing him much of anything at all, not with the way Ryan looked at him sometimes or with tour racing up to meet him again, just now that he was really ready for it, or with Ian and Dallon being so brilliant, everything being brilliant, the world hastening to show off its prizes. Brendon couldn't remember why he'd been sad the other night. He knew there were reasons, he knew there were things to be frightened of. He just wasn't that worried about anything beating him right now.

"People seem to like it," Spencer said. "I haven't been online since Saturday, but Pete's saying—"

"Who _gives_ a fuck," Brendon said. "I like it, and you like it, and we can do what we like." He pulled back and Spencer was smiling at him, that huge, brilliant one that made his eyes crinkle up a little. Brendon laughed, jubilant, and pushed up on his tiptoes to kiss Spencer's forehead with a loud, smacking sound, over the top because that's how he felt, like there was too much of him and it was rushing out everywhere and Brendon didn't give a _fuck_.

"Hey!" Ian called, sticking his head out the door. "Did you guys just get here? We're all set up, come on in!"

They played again, and Brendon jumped around and threw his head back and moved his hips and then fell over in the middle of a song. Dallon laughed down at him, face open and delighted, and Brendon got up again and kept singing, kept moving, because it felt like the only way for the words to come out of him. He sang old songs and thought about being told how to sing them and sang them the way Ryan had wanted, the way Ryan had always wanted, but he couldn't stop a certain joyousness filling him up, either, infusing even _Camisado_ with something he couldn't control, something that made Spencer meet his eyes and beam again and again. Brendon wished there was a skylight, a glass ceiling, or something, but he didn't really need it, either, just threw his face up and sang his fucking lungs out.

They stopped around five for an early dinner, having forgotten to have lunch, and Spencer pulled his laptop out and started making his way through an almost full inbox, showing the positive responses to New Perspective to Brendon. Brendon lazed on the floor beside him, not tired but ready to be still for a little while. Not for long, though, there was going to be more rehearsal or going out or anything, and Brendon wasn't done yet.

Then Spencer froze beside him and let out a tiny, angry hiss. Brendon sat up and said, "What is it?"

Spencer took a deep breath. He said, "Well, New Perspective is 90th on iTunes right now. And Jon and Ryan just released their new song."

Ian and Dallon looked up as one and Brendon took in a breath, clenched his hands into fists. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," Spencer said. "I – yeah, they announced it on Twitter yesterday. I haven't been checking my phone—"

"Me either," Brendon said. His mouth twisted painfully. "Shall we give it a listen?"

"Brendon," Spencer said, and put a hand on Brendon's shoulder. Brendon twisted in close to him, and then felt suddenly self-conscious about Ian and Dallon. It wasn't like he thought they were all 'no homo' college bros or whatever, but it was still a different dynamic. Brendon had always thought all the reaction they got – even from other bands on the label, sometimes – about the physical closeness of Panic as a unit had been ridiculous, and he still did, but on the other hand, he was currently fucking his ex-guitarist. So.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "It's not a huge deal. It's just. I was in a good mood."

"It's a pretty dickish thing to do," Dallon offered, and Brendon nodded, screwing his face up.

"Ryan and Jon can be pretty dickish when the mood strikes them," Spencer said.

"I don't think this is Jon's fault," Brendon said grimly. He ran his hands through his hair and said, "Fuck it."

"I mean, in some ways it's an okay thing," Spencer said. "Fans can hear and compare, see what we mean about creative differences, and that can be reassuring—"

"I know all the reasons why it's a good thing," Brendon said. "I also know that it was a fucking bitch of a move to pull."

"Yeah," Spencer said, and he was looking calm and thoughtful, like he was working out all the pros and cons, but he had that little glint in his eyes that he only got when he was really, truly pissed, so Brendon didn't feel so bad about sighing and suggesting that they call it a day.

He drove home with his fingers white-knuckled around the steering wheel, turning off the radio when he couldn't find anything sufficiently loud enough, not having the energy to root through his glove compartment for a CD. He settled for driving with no small amount of aggression and generally being a complete asshole on the road, which he usually made a deliberate attempt not to be. It was some small sense of satisfaction, anyway, especially when he realised with a start that he was unconsciously baring his teeth every time he thought about the whole thing.

He didn't notice the other car until he froze with his hand on his front doorhandle, realising it was already open. "You've got to be fucking kidding me," he murmured, and then he pushed open the door and Ryan came wandering into the passageway to greet him.

"Hey, I thought I heard you," he said. "Listen, I've got tickets for this show at—"

"Fuck you," Brendon said, and walked past him, hands shaking. "Fucking fuck you, Ryan. Get out of my house."

"What?" Ryan said, following him. Brendon could _hear_ him rolling his eyes. He clenched his teeth. "What crawled up your—"

"Ryan," Brendon said, and chucked his keys on the counter separating the kitchen and the living room. "I don't know how much clearer I can be. Get the fuck out of my house."

Ryan paused behind him, starting to sound annoyed. "What's the matter with you?" he asked.

"How about you posting your song the day after ours?" Brendon said, wheeling on Ryan.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Ryan said. "It's not even a big deal—"

"It _is_ a big deal!" Brendon yelled. "This whole thing is a big deal, Ryan! Our band broke up, and you're being a passive aggressive _bitch_ in interviews, and you can't even acknowledge that you're a huge fucking hypocrite indulging in hard party drugs! It's a huge fucking deal, Ryan, and you just turned the music into a fucking competition, and I'm fucking _sick_ of you not acknowledging anything! You think you can just ignore everything and win that way!"

"I don't," Ryan said. He drew in a breath, and said, "Brendon, you're being really childish—"

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Brendon stared at him in disbelief. "Ryan, I don't know what the fuck's been going through your head this past month, but I'm so tired of it I can't even _say_. I don't want to – just get out of my house and don't come back, let's give everyone the fucked up Behind The Music special you so clearly _deserve_." Ryan stared at him, face white, and didn't say anything. Brendon shook his head and said, voice loud and harsh, "What's _wrong_ with you?"

"I don't _know_!" Ryan shouted, voice cracking, and it was such a surprise that Brendon jumped, couldn't help it. Ryan looked livid all of a sudden, fists clenched by his side. "I don't _know_ what's wrong with me, Brendon, why don't you tell me! You could tell me all about what I did to make you not – not – to make you hate me or whatever the fuck you think of me now, because I have no idea, I can't think of anything I did except maybe _grow up_ —"

"Grow up?" Brendon interrupted. "You seriously think you've been mature about this whole thing?"

"Not now," Ryan snapped. "Generally! Whatever happened to make you stop, stop wanting or even _liking_ me."

Brendon stared at him, feeling suddenly out of his depth, but still shaking with an anger that he couldn't keep in any longer. It had been long enough. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he demanded. "Ryan, seriously, you can't," and then Ryan had shoved him backwards into the wall and was kissing him, mouth hard and furious on Brendon's, biting at Brendon's mouth and forcing his tongue past Brendon's lips, pushing Brendon back onto the seat of the couch and moving almost on top of him, pressed up against him.

Brendon struggled but Ryan was insistent, all over him, pushing down, and it was more like biting than kissing. After a moment Brendon pushed his hands up Ryan's shirt and raked his nails down Ryan's back and Ryan cried out and arched against him, moving frantically, writhing and twisting up against Brendon. It wasn't much of a surprise that Brendon was hard, wasn't a surprise when he manoeuvred and got a leg pressed between Ryan's thighs and Ryan was, too, rocking up against him, pulling on Brendon's hair so hard that it made involuntary tears spring to his eyes.

"Fucking fuck you," Brendon snarled, and he forced his way up from the couch and walked them backward, slammed Ryan into the wall hard enough to hurt, hard enough to bruise, and Ryan kissed him like he was drowning, breathing harshly and rutting against Brendon's leg, panting and sucking in harsh little gulps of air, small sounds forcing their way out of his chest. _You've been holding out on me_ , Brendon thought, and somewhere beneath his anger and general hatred at that moment he managed to be surprised, because before then he would have said that Ryan gave sex his all, that Ryan was always eager, always ready for more. This was something different though, less lazy, less comfortable, and even the urgency of the times before this had been filtered through a golden afternoon light – now Ryan was scrabbling at Brendon's belt, tugging it open haphazardly and shoving Brendon's jeans down so fast he almost got friction burn from the denim, and every time Brendon went to shift his head Ryan moved back in fast, bit at his lips and kept their mouths connected, hot and hard and unrelenting.

"I hate you," Brendon said, and Ryan pushed his own pants down and stepped out of them, then forced Brendon away enough to drag his shirt off, and Ryan's own, before stepping back in close, pressing up close against each other, cocks pressing against the other's stomachs, Ryan's nails digging into Brendon's hips, and Brendon's mouth was painful already, swollen and raw. "I hate you," he repeated, and Ryan broke away, not very far, just enough that he could look at Brendon, eyes very bright, pupils blown.

"I know," he said, and there was a kind of vicious glee in that. "I know, and you did this, this is what you've made me into," and Brendon kissed him again so he didn't have to listen to Ryan talk anymore, had had enough of Ryan talking to last him a lifetime. He forced Ryan around and then backwards, pushing him down onto the couch, and he moved back enough to force his fingers into Ryan's mouth, pushing them in without warning so that Ryan choked a little, unprepared. Then he sucked on them, the pressure making Brendon gasp, and dragged his teeth over the pads of Brendon's fingers, and with his free hand he pulled Brendon up onto the couch over him, sprawling on top of him, their bodies pressed together, both of them straining and fighting. Brendon thought again about Spencer saying that he had no idea what Ryan's motives were and thought that whatever they were, Ryan was fighting to win, Ryan was giving it everything he had, and what he had was a little desperate and a little bitter.

He was jerked back to the moment by Ryan biting at his fingers with increasing impatience and Brendon yanked them free and snarled at Ryan, reduced to stupid, instinctive responses. Ryan glared back and Brendon moved down fast, scrambling backwards and sliding two fingers into Ryan at once, rough and hard, and Ryan cried out, flinging an arm out over the side of the couch and arching his hips up, cock hard and curving up to his stomach, the head already beading with pre-come. Brendon leaned forward and licked it off and twisted his fingers and Ryan cried out again, made another of those impossible, loud sounds that Brendon hadn't heard before. Brendon had figured Ryan as a groaner in sex, low and sexy but mostly quiet, had pinned him with that and Ryan's rough breathing, but now Ryan was making ragged sounds that curled and died in his throat and not pausing for breath, pushing back onto Brendon again and again. Brendon slid his third finger in, and bared his teeth in a smile when Ryan's back arched up off the couch helplessly in one curved, graceful line, his ribs standing out.

There was a strip of condoms lying on the coffee table from the other day and Brendon reached for them with one hand, tearing one open with his teeth and sliding his fingers out a little too quick, a little too rough, to be entirely kind. Ryan cried out something that sounded like a word, this time, but Brendon didn't know what it was, and he rolled the condom on and pressed the head of his cock up against Ryan, just a steady pressure against Ryan's ass, waiting for a moment, for he didn't know what. He had a sudden pang of uncertainty, of something almost like remorse, because he hated Ryan right then but he didn't want to hurt him, and they hadn't done this before without fair amounts of lube, but Ryan looked up at him with wild eyes and spread his knees as best he could without falling off the couch, said, "Now, fucking _now_ ," and Brendon pushed forward without thinking.

It really hadn't been their usual procedure and Ryan was impossibly tight, so much tighter than normal, enough to make it almost too much, and it was hard to move, uncomfortable crouched on his knees between Ryan's legs on the end of his suddenly too small couch. Brendon pulled out and Ryan gasped, and reached out compulsively when Brendon stood up off the couch, but Brendon was already moving up and kissing Ryan, fierce and hungry, his hands on either side of Ryan's face, tugging him up so that Ryan was forced to move with him, and he followed Brendon, he went where Brendon pulled him, round and onto his knees, braced on the arm of the couch, and at an angle so that Brendon could rest one leg just bracketing Ryan's hips and the other on the floor and then push in, all the way in, one fast, hard movement until their hips were pressed together.

"Fuck," Ryan gasped, and then, when Brendon began to move, "fuck, fuck, Brendon, I can't, Brendon, I want, I want, I want—"

"Fucking shut up," Brendon growled, and Ryan let out a hitching breath that sounded almost like a sob and bowed his head, shaking all over, shivering and moving back into Brendon's thrusts, meeting each one, hips twisting sharply so that he could manipulate where Brendon was moving. Brendon put his hands on Ryan's ass and held him open for a moment so he could see his cock disappearing into Ryan, watch each thrust push Ryan open and hold him there, all of Ryan's body moving and giving way to take Brendon in. Ryan was calling out again, loud enough that some hysterical, disconnected part of Brendon's brain wondered for the first time in his life if maybe the neighbours would hear, and he couldn't understand what Ryan was saying, except he thought that maybe it was Brendon's name.

He put his arm around Ryan's waist and took Ryan's cock in his hand, jerking him off in rhythm to his thrusts, and Ryan's arms were shaking as he held himself up on the couch, which Brendon was kind of glad about, because his leg was feeling distinctly wobbly, and he wasn't sure how much longer he was going to last, how much longer he could hold himself up. He found himself echoing Ryan from before, saying, "I want," in between hitching little gasps and they were being too loud, Brendon knew, it was almost embarrassing, but they hadn't done this on tour buses and they hadn't done it in hotels or in the apartment in Maryland or in Brendon's house when they had last stayed here together, all four of them, as they had used to be. It was enough. Brendon thought they could be loud this once, just this once, and Ryan cried out and came all over his hand.

Brendon leaned forward as much as he could and dropped his head to Ryan's sweaty back – and Ryan had never been sweaty before, not really, had gotten hot with beads of perspiration standing out but not like this, his skin hot and clammy like he had a fever against Brendon's forehead – and lost the rhythm, hips thrusting in jolts and starts into Ryan's ass. Ryan clenched tight all around him and Brendon saw, out of the corner of his eye, Ryan craning his head over his shoulder to see Brendon, eyes dark and wide and desperate, mouth still red and painful looking, and Brendon pushed in deep one last time and came, shuddering so much that his teeth were almost chattering together.

He pulled out and stumbled a little in stepping away, tying off the condom and managing to make his way to the wastebasket in the corner of the room, dropping it in. He found his underpants on the way back and pulled them on, and his t-shirt, and when he straightened Ryan had done the same, was standing in the centre of the room with his boxers on and his unbuttoned shirt pulled haphazardly over his shoulders. His hair was tousled, like Brendon had tugged it hard and ruffled it all out of shape at one point without noticing, and his pupils still looked blown, staring at Brendon.

"Fucking Christ, Ross," Brendon said, and drew in a deep breath. "I – fucking fine, are you happy?"

Ryan laughed hoarsely. It sounded panicked and a little desperate, and Brendon had the sudden image of a wild, hurt bird, in pain and still trying to escape. He said, "No."

"I don't know what you want me to do about that," Brendon snapped, a little surprised to find that he was still furious. "I don't really give a shit anymore, to be honest, Ryan, but let's play the game and let me ask what'll get you out of my house and out of my fucking _life_." Ryan shook his head, mouth open a little and eyes still fixed on Brendon, and Brendon ran his hands through his hair and said, "Goddamnit, Ryan, what the fuck do you _want_?"

"I want you," Ryan said, the words breaking out of him like they hurt. "I want you and the band and I want – I want you to stop looking at me like that, I want you to stop pretending like I'm the fucked up one, like you're not going on _tour_ in a fucking week."

Brendon stood very still. "I don't know what you mean," he said. "I don't – you've made it pretty fucking clear—" and then he stopped, because Ryan hadn't actually made much of anything clear. He cleared his throat and said, "I – you want the band? And me? Me, like, a sex thing, or."

"I'm in love with you," Ryan said, staring at him like he was hungry, like he was hungry and surprised and miserable. "I've been in love with you for a long, for a long – that's not the point."

Brendon swallowed. He thought about Ryan asking Brendon to ask him, about the strange look in Ryan's eyes, about the other looks, the ones that Brendon had always filed in the 'what-the-fuck-ever' category and moved on from, for years. "That's kind of a pretty big point," he said hoarsely, and thought about being on his board out in the water and not wanting to come in to something he didn't understand.

"I don't even," Ryan said, and laughed helplessly. "What does it matter, Brendon, what does it," and Brendon crossed the floor to him and looked straight at Ryan, not very far apart, watched Ryan trail off and swallow hard, Adam's apple dragging along the line of his throat.

"It matters," he said, something soft spreading through him. "Fuck, but I'm pissed at you," and he kissed Ryan, mouthed soothingly at Ryan's swollen, sore-looking lips, tried to keep it soft even when Ryan made a sound low in his throat and surged towards Brendon, wrapping arms around Brendon's neck, twining his fingers through Brendon's hair.

Brendon took careful steps backward until his legs knocked up against the couch and he could sit down, Ryan following him in a rush. Brendon mumbled, against his mouth, "I don't – all the stuff, taking everything so lightly. You acted like you didn't care."

"I – it's my band, Brendon," Ryan said, breaking away, staring at him. "I always." He stopped, shaking his head.

"You left the band," Brendon said.

"Because that's what you wanted me to do," Ryan said, in a rush. "Because you hated me, I could see you hating me, Brendon, I can't, I can't deal with that," and he kissed Brendon again in a rush, mouths knocking off-balance until Brendon steadied him, held him close and warm. Ryan broke away and he still looked startled and frightened but he was a little calmer now, obviously soothed, and there was a faint glow of hope about him when he said, "But now we can, we can fix this."

"Yeah," Brendon said. Everything seemed new and terrifyingly fragile, but: "Yeah."

Ryan swallowed, licking his lips. "And we can – we can work out the band again, work something out so we can still play together and—"

"Wait," Brendon said. "Do you mean – you mean get back together, all four of us?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "You and me and Spence and Jon, it's been so stupid, it's not what I wanted, I just didn't understand—"

"Oh, Ryan," Brendon said. "No." Ryan stared at him, uncomprehending, and Brendon shook his head again, said, "No, Ryan."

Ryan spoke slowly, haltingly. "But if you and me are okay, then—"

"I don't want to make music with you anymore," Brendon said, and then regretted it when Ryan flinched. "Hey, no, I'm sorry," he said, smoothing his hands down Ryan's back. "I'm sorry, I'm just – it's the truth, Ryan, what we said in those posts and in the interviews. We want to make different music, and I _like_ being able to make the different music."

"But we can just – I don't understand," Ryan said. "You wrote the songs for Pretty. Odd., you wrote those two songs and I didn't even ask you to, but it's still, it's close to what we want to do, you can write and you _chose_ to write the same kind of music."

"I wrote those songs for you," Brendon said. "Because you wanted them."

They stared at each other for a moment. Ryan said, slowly, "Then that's it."

"No," Brendon said, "because you don't have to get so fucked up over stuff like this. You can treat it seriously without it becoming the end of the world. You can have me and not the band. You can – Jesus, Ryan, don't you ever _talk_ to people? Don't you think that might be easier than running over and over shit in your own head and coming up with plans to deal with stuff that seriously _blow_?"

"I wasn't," Ryan said, and breathed in deeply, rubbed his nose against his bony wrist. "I didn't want to, to be – we always fight."

"Yeah," Brendon said. "Yeah, Ryan, we do. This isn't fighting. It's growing up."

"You're," he said, and stopped, tried again. "You and me, we can."

"I want," Brendon whispered, and kissed him. One or both of them tasted like salt.

"You're going on tour," Ryan said.

"There's this thing called a phone," Brendon told him. "If you picked up when I called you, that might be nice. And there's other things, stop me if you've heard of them, they're called airplanes, they're like giant metal birds that fly through the air and can take you to visit places, sometimes, take you to talk to your best friend and the other friend who you've kind of been an asshole to just because he happens to be your ex-boss, and me too, if you want. Things don't have to be so hard, Ryan, nothing has to be as hard as you make it."

"Brendon," Ryan said, "Brendon," and Brendon folded in close and let Ryan lie against him, still shivering in Brendon's arms, all bare, hot skin and pointy elbows and bones lying too close to the surface, Ryan on show like he hadn't been to Brendon for years. In the oncoming dusk, with the shadows stretching out over the room slow-moving and insidious but not really dangerous, the sound of their joint breathing was more like the sea than anything else Brendon could think of at that moment.


End file.
